John McAfee, a technology millionaire, who police want to speak to about the gun murder of his neighbour in Belize has revealed he is in hiding with a young woman as the country's leader urged him to come forward.
John McAfee, 67, has adopted a disguise and is moving every four hours in the Central American jungle in an attempt to evade authorities.
Speaking to the Associated Press, he revealed that a young woman is with him in hiding. The woman's identity has not been revealed.
In an extraordinary series of interviews with Wired magazine, McAfee gave running updates on his progress, describing how he was travelling in boats, lying on the floors of taxis and sleeping in a lice-infested bed.
The tattooed millionaire, who has a penchant for guns, said he had dyed his hair, eyebrows, beard, and moustache black.
He added: "I have modified my appearance in a radical fashion. I'll probably look like a murderer, unfortunately."
McAfee, who lived in a $1.5 million beachside villa on the island of Ambergris Caye off the Belize coast, has repeatedly denied shooting dead his neighbour Gregory Viant Faull, 52, a retired American builder from Florida.
McAfee started his company in the late 1980s and made $100 million.
He said he was alone and unarmed. At one point he told Wired: "Power was just cut to the house I'm in. I think this is it."
Later, he said: "I'm holed up in a place, a mattress here has lice. I've never experienced this before. I'm holed up, I have limited contact with anyone. It's a small country, I'm a white man with unique features. If I leave this house I would be identified instantly. I will not turn myself in. I am adept at hiding. I will do whatever it takes to stay alive.
"You can say I'm paranoid about it but they will kill me, there is no question. They've been trying to get me for months. They want to silence me."
Belize prime minister Dean Barrow dismissed McAfee's claims as "hugely exaggerated".
"Mr McAfee is a person of interest," Mr Barrow said in a phone interview broadcast on national radio and television on Wednesday night.
"His reaction to being a person of interest is, to put it very mildly, hugely exaggerated. He is now, I think, visiting all sorts of calumnies on our country and on our security forces and his behavior is to be deprecated."
"Come forward man," the prime minister continued.
"It is now hugely public and you surely do not expect anyone to believe that the police want to kill you, so that if you come in for questioning you are going to be murdered.
"That is utter and complete nonsense. The spotlight is very much on this issue. Come in and have the police do their job and if it is that you are truly innocent, you are free to go."
Police spokesman Raphael Martinez said: "It would be quite nice for him to come in and answer some of the questions that could lead to the closure of this case "He is not wanted for murder, but he is wanted for questioning as a person of interest."
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