MIAMI BEACH, USA – ANTI-VIRUS software founder John McAfee said US authorities have made no efforts to question him since he arrived in Miami on Wednesday night after weeks of evading Belizean authorities who want to question him in the death of his neighbour.

“Why would they want to question me, about what?” a tired-looking but jauntily dressed McAfee said yesterday from the steps of his South Beach hotel.

McAfee was deported from Guatemala after sneaking in illegally from Belize, where police want to question him in connection with the death of a US expatriate who lived near him on an island off Belize’s coast. US officials said there was no active arrest warrant for McAfee that would justify taking him into custody.

He said he was put on a plane to Miami where he will stay until his girlfriend, 20-year-old Belizean Samantha Vanegas, and a friend can join him.

“I had the warmest welcome of my life. The captain patted me on the shoulders and said, ‘We’re here to help you, sir, please come with us,” McAfee told a throng of reporters camped outside his hotel Thursday.

The 67-year-old British native said a dozen custom agents and police officers then drove him around until he asked to be dropped at a taxi stand. The eccentric millionaire was typically chatty and said he was anxious for a decent breakfast after days of eating terrible Guatemalan prison food.

But he bristled as reporters repeatedly asked him why he won’t answer questions from officials in Belize, denying he was under investigation. He has not been charged with a crime.

“They just want to question me, they just have a couple of questions for me, that’s not investigating me,” he said.

McAfee says he did not kill the neighbour and feared his own life would be in danger if he turned himself in to Belizean authorities.

“If they didn’t want to harm me, why have they been harming my property and my dogs? Now five of my dogs have been killed,” said McAfee, claiming authorities shot one of his dogs in the head and raided his house eight times.

He begged the State Department to expedite visas for Vanegas and another friend. Vanegas had accompanied him when he was on the run, but did not go with him to the US

“Their lives are in danger,” he said.

McAfee gave ABC an interview after landing in Miami that was featured on Thursday’s Good Morning America. In it, he said he’d been faking illness in Guatemala. Asked if his apparent heart problem in court was a ruse, he said, “Of course. It kept me from going back to Belize.”

He said all his money and assets were still in banks in Belize and he had left Guatemala with just his clothes and shoes. He held up a stack of five-dollar bills and said a stranger had given them to him after he arrived in Miami. McAfee also said he had made up stories while he was on the run to gain news coverage, although it was unclear what parts of the tale he was referring to. “What’s a better story (than) millionaire madman on the run?” he told ABC.

In Guatemala on Sunday, McAfee said he wanted to return to the United States and “settle down to whatever normal life” he can. “I simply would like to live comfortably day by day; fish, swim, enjoy my declining years.”