McAfee antivirus software founder on the run after murder on Belize

Police in the Central American nation of Belize are hunting for computer antivirus pioneer John McAfee to question him about the murder of his neighbour in the Caribbean.

McAfee, the American founder of the software firm of the same name, is reported to have proclaimed his innocence in a telephone interview with an American journalist.

He reportedly phoned Wired magazine reporter Joshua Davis on Monday and said he had hidden from police as they searched his property by burying himself in sand with a cardboard box over his head. "It was extraordinarily uncomfortable. But if they find me they will kill me."

McAfee, whose fortunes have plummeted since he sold his firm, lived next door to 52-year-old Gregory Viant Faull, a fellow American who was found with a gunshot wound to his head inside his two-storey home north of San Pedro, a town on the island of Ambergris Caye, said Raphael Martinez, spokesman for Belize's Ministry of National Security. A housekeeper discovered the body on Sunday morning.

Martinez said no charges had been filed in the case, describing McAfee, 67, only as a "person of interest" for police. "It's too early in the investigation. To say he is a suspect would be a bold statement," Martinez said.

Police went to McAfee's home on the island but he had not been there, the spokesman said.