The eccentric millionaire founder of the antivirus software company McAfee Inc., wanted for questioning in the killing of his neighbour in Belize, says he is innocent and on the run from police.

John McAfee has been calling Wired.com sporadically with his side of the story since Monday, the tech website reported.

McAfee is a “prime suspect,” police said, in the gunshot slaying of 52-year-old Gregory Viant Faull, whose body was found Sunday inside his home north of San Pedro, a town in the Central American country of Belize.

The 67-year-old McAfee told Wired he saw police coming for him on Sunday and buried himself in the sand with a cardboard box over his head.

“They will kill me if they find me,” he said.

“Under no circumstances am I going to willingly talk to the police in this country,” he told Wired Monday afternoon.

“You can say I’m paranoid about it but . . . they want to silence me. I am not well liked by the prime minister.”

Nonetheless, McAfee said he would not leave Belize.

“I like it here. It’s the nicest place on Earth.”

Of the shooting of Faull, McAfee said he knows “nothing, other than I heard he had been shot.

“I thought maybe they were coming for me. They got the wrong house. They killed him. It spooked me out.”

Faull, who like McAfee is a U.S. citizen who retired to the island of Ambergris Caye off the coast of Belize, had filed a formal complaint about McAfee’s half-dozen dogs last week, Wired reported..

McAfee said the dogs were poisoned on Friday and he blamed “black-suited thugs” he saw arrive by boat that night as an intimidation tactic to get him off the island.

Wired reporter Joshua Davis, who visited McAfee’s home in the summer, said the tech pioneer also employed armed guards to patrol his property.

Belize 5, a television station, described McAfee as a “philanthropist and investor in Belize,” who donated a $1.2 million ship to the country’s coast guard in 2009.

McAfee’s fears about Belize police date to a raid on his home in April by the Belize Gang Suppression Unit, when he was handcuffed and held without food or water for 14 hours. One of his dogs was shot and killed, he told Belize 5, and a cache of weapons seized.

“It began with my refusal to donate to the local political boss,” he told Belize 5.

On Nov. 8, Belize 5 reported, he had “made a sizable donation of equipment” to the local police.

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Raphael Martinez, spokesman for Belize’s Ministry of National Security, said that no charges had been filed in the case; Belize 5 reported a man had been detained in Faull’s killing.

The case was the latest twist in McAfee’s recent life as an eccentric yoga lover, the Associated Press reported. He sold his stake in the anti-virus software company in the early 1990s and moved to Belize about three years ago to lower his taxes.

He told The New York Times in 2009 that he had lost all but $4 million of his $100 million fortune in the U.S. financial crisis and that he was moving to Belize.

Residents of the community of San Pedro said Faull was a longtime homeowner there who had recently retired as a builder and moved from Florida to live full-time in the island.

“He was starting to enjoy his retirement,” said a real estate agent.

The agent, who insisted on speaking anonymously out of fear of retaliation, said she had heard Faull complain about McAfee’s numerous dogs barking outside his property.

Other residents said McAfee seemed standoffish and not friendly.

“His physical appearance doesn’t really inspire you to go over and make friends with him. He’s a little scruffy looking,” said another real estate agent, Bob Hamilton.

Police said Faull’s computer and phone were missing, but there were no signs of forced entry at his home.

Police reported finding a single 9-mm shell casing and said it appeared Faull was killed between late Saturday and Sunday morning, which was a rainy night on the island. Faull was last seen at 10 p.m. Saturday.

With files from Associated Press