A judge in Martorell (Barcelona) has agreed this Friday to allow the transfer to the United States of the body of John McAfee, founder of the antivirus that bears his name, after the Court of Barcelona confirmed that he committed suicide in 2021 in the Brians 2 prison in Sant Esteve de Sesrovires (Barcelona).

As reported by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), the head of the investigating court number 5 of Martorell has today notified the widow that she allows the transfer of the body of McAfee, who committed suicide in prison in June 2021 at the age of 75 after learning that he was going to be extradited to the United States for tax fraud.

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McAfee antivirus founder John McAfee commits suicide in Barcelona prison

The judge initially closed the case into McAfee's death, considering that the proceedings she had ordered indicated that there were no indications of the involvement of third parties and that he had committed suicide. However, the widow appealed to the Court of Barcelona, which forced the judge to postpone the authorization of the removal of the body from the premises of the Institute of Legal Medicine of Catalonia, in Barcelona, until the appeal was successful.

Finally, the ninth section of the Barcelona Court confirmed last August the archiving of the case into McAfee's death – in a resolution that could no longer be appealed – concluding that it was a suicide and that "there are no indications" that point to "anything different".

Faced with this situation, the Prosecutor's Office has been in favor of the investigating judge authorizing the body to be made available so that it can be transferred to the United States, so the judge has already authorized it and has notified the widow that she can dispose of MacAfee's remains.

Arrested in 2020

McAfee was arrested in October 2020 at El Prat Airport in Barcelona as he was about to catch a flight to Istanbul and has been in pre-trial detention ever since. During the extradition hearing, the businessman, whose tax debt in the United States amounted to more than four million dollars, claimed to have paid "millions of dollars in taxes" and said he was the victim of political persecution for having denounced corruption in the tax agency.

On June 23, 2021, he was found dead in his cell, the same day that the National Court announced its decision to extradite him to the United States for alleged tax evasion.

For the Court of Barcelona, all the reports presented – such as the forensic result of the autopsy, the police report, photographs of the corpse or the recordings of the prison itself on the day of the events that confirm that he had no contact with another inmate – agree that "there are no indications of anything other than a death of suicidal origin".

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