Guatemala Orders Release of John McAfee

Tycoon has 10 days to resolve his status, hopes to return to US
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 12, 2012 12:01 AM CST
Lawyer: Judge Has Ordered McAfee's Release
Software company founder John McAfee is seen at an immigration detention center in Guatemala City last week.   (AP Photo/Guatemala's Human Rights Ombudsman's office)

Looks like there may not be a trial in McAfee's future: A judge has ordered John McAfee freed from a Guatemalan detention center, a lawyer for the colorful antivirus tycoon says. The lawyer says that the judge has declared McAfee's detention illegal and given him 10 days to resolve his immigration issues, the AP reports. McAfee has been fighting deportation to Belize, where he is wanted for questioning over the murder of a neighbor.

McAfee has said he wants to return to the US with his Belizean girlfriend and "settle down to whatever normal life" he can and his lawyer says that would be his best option. "For me, it's best that McAfee go to the United States, that's definitely the country where he will be safest," the lawyer says. "In Guatemala, he runs the risk that anything could happen to him." A spokesman for police in Belize, however, says he hopes the "good working relationship" his country has with the US will help them close the murder case even if McAfee makes it back to America, the Los Angeles Times reports. Click here for more on the McAfee saga. (More John McAfee stories.)

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