Spanish court accepts McAfee Antivirus Creator’s extradition to the US – 06/23/2021

Madrid, June 23 (EFE). The Spanish court on Wednesday accepted a request to extradite John McAfee, the creator of the famous computer antivirus program of the same name, to the United States, on charges of tax evasion, for allegedly concealing high income between 2016 and 2018.

In the decision of the Spanish national hearing, to which Efe obtained access, McAfee’s extradition is given the green light for events related to the years 2016, 2017, and 2018, but not to the corresponding events of 2014 and 2015, given that they would do so in Spain. To be one of the causes of the administrative violation.

Contrary to the defense’s thesis, the court ruled out evidence of “prosecution motivated by political, ideological, or similar grounds” because “except for McAfee’s oral allegations”, no “revealing evidence” was presented in this sense.

McAfee, who is considering a second US extradition request, was arrested last October at Barcelona’s El Prat Airport as he was preparing to fly to Istanbul, Turkey.

Since then, the American has remained in preventive detention, after the court also rejected his last request for his release, saying that “the risk of escape remains clear” and that the accused “shows no evidence of roots.”

During the hearing, the businessman, who has more than $4 million in US tax debt, claimed he had paid “millions of dollars in taxes” and said he was the victim of political persecution for reporting corruption at the US Tax Agency. United States of America.

The Spanish national hearing replied “there is no credible evidence that such a thing happened”, adding that the extradition request “is protected by crime against public money – tax evasion -” and that it met the requirements accepted.

The businessman also said that he decided to go into politics and participated in the primaries of the Libertarian Party, “a radical and very minority political party – according to his own statements – in which he did not even choose a candidate,” according to the Spanish details. which did not see a “clear link” between this fact and the extradition request.

Finally, the Spanish national hearing confirms that the allegations regarding the state of health of the 75-year-old McAfee “lack any hypothetical basis” with regard to the benefits of extradition and rejected her request to cancel the process to be submitted to the UK, where they also have citizenship, the opportunity to request their extradition which will be evaluated “whenever the case”.