Anti-virus software founder John McAfee arrived inthe U.S. on Wednesday night after being deported from Guatemala, where he hadsought to evade police questioning in the killing of a man in neighboringBelize.
The American Airlines commercial jet carrying McAfee landedin Miami shortly before 7 p.m. Wednesday, said Miami International Airport spokesmanGreg Chin.
A short time later, a posting on McAfee's website announcedthat he was at a hotel in Miami's upscale South Beach neighborhood. He said hearrived by taxi after a group of customs or immigration agents, he didn't knowwhich, escorted him to an airport taxi stand. McAfee has frequentlycommunicated through the website.
"I have no phone, no money, no contactinformation," the post said. Reached by telephone at the hotel, the67-year-old McAfee told an AP reporter that he couldn't talk because he waswaiting for a call from his girlfriend, 20-year-old Belizean Samantha Vanegas.
Vanegas had accompanied him when he was on the run, but didnot go with him to the U.S.
On a blog he has been posting for the past two weeks, McAfeewrote, "I have been forcibly separated from Sam," but claimed shewould be coming to the United States later.
McAfee sat in a coach-class seat on the flight, which tookoff at midafternoon from Guatemala City, according to the airline.
Other passengers on the flight told The Associated Pressthat McAfee was escorted off the aircraft before others were allowed todisembark.
"They asked us to please stay seated and said, 'Mr.John McAfee, come to the front,' and he did," said Maria Claridge, a36-year-old photographer from Fort Lauderdale. "He walked very peacefully,chin up. He didn't seem stressed."
Claridge said she did not see what happened to McAfee afterhe left the aircraft. She said he was well dressed, in a black suit and whiteshirt, appeared to be traveling alone and that she didn't realize who he wasuntil another passenger told her.
"I thought he was either a diplomat or apolitician," she said. "It just seemed eerie to be traveling on anairplane with someone who was in trouble."
An FBI spokesman in Miami, James Marshall, told the AP in anemail that the agency is not involved with McAfee's return to the U.S.
Authorities from U.S. Customs and Border Protection,Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals office and the U.S.attorney's office did not immediately respond to questions about whether McAfeewould be questioned or detained in the U.S. They said there was no activearrest warrant for McAfee that would justify taking him into custody.
Bystanders in Guatemala City stopped to stare at the passingpolice convoy that escorted McAfee to the Central American country'sinternational airport. People at the airport crowded around the immigrationtruck carrying McAfee, straining to take pictures of him with their cellphones.
"I'm free. I'm going to America," McAfee saidbefore boarding the plane.
He suggested his weeklong detention in Guatemala forentering the country clandestinely had taken its toll on him.
"All I can tell you is, I'm 10 years older, and I don'tknow what I'm doing. I'm just going to Miami," he said.
McAfee said Sunday that he wanted to return to the UnitedStates and "settle down to whatever normal life" he can. "Isimply would like to live comfortably day by day, fish, swim, enjoy mydeclining years."
His expulsion from Guatemala marked the last chapter in astrange, monthlong odyssey to avoid police questioning about the Novemberkilling of American expatriate Gregory Viant Faull, who lived a couple ofhouses down from McAfee's compound on Ambergris Caye, off Belize's Caribbeancoast.
McAfee has acknowledged that his dogs were bothersome andthat Faull had complained about them days before some of the dogs werepoisoned, but denies killing Faull.
He was in hiding in Belize for weeks after police pronouncedhim a person of interest in the killing. Belizean authorities have urged him toshow up for questioning, but have not lodged any formal charges against him.McAfee has said he feared he would be killed if he turned himself in toBelizean authorities.
McAfee is an acknowledged practical joker who has dabbled inyoga, ultra-light aircraft and the production of herbal medications. He has ledan eccentric life since he sold his stake in the software company named afterhim in the early 1990s and moved to Belize about three years ago to lower histaxes.
He told The New York Times in 2009 that he had lost all but$4 million of his $100 million fortune in the U.S. financial crisis. However, astory on the Gizmodo website quoted him as describing that claim as "notvery accurate at all."