MADRID (AP) -- John McAfee, the creator of the McAfee antivirus software who last year claimed he had bribed a Bahamian officer, has been found dead in his cell in a jail near Barcelona, a government official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Authorities said the cause of death was being investigated.

Hours earlier, a Spanish court issued a preliminary ruling in favor of the 75-year-old tycoon's extradition to the United States to face tax-related criminal charges that could carry decades in prison.

Security personnel at the Brians 2 penitentiary near the northeastern Spanish city tried to revive him, but the jail's medical team finally certified his death, a statement from the regional Catalan government said.

"A judicial delegation has arrived to investigate the causes of death," the statement said, adding that "Everything points to death by suicide."

The statement didn't identify McAfee by name, but said he was a 75-year-old U.S. citizen awaiting extradition to his country. A Catalan government source familiar with the event who was not authorised to be named in media reports confirmed to the AP that the dead man was McAfee.

Spain's National Court on Monday ruled in favour of extraditing McAfee, who had argued in a hearing earlier this month that the charges against him by prosecutors in Tenessee were politically motivated and that he would spend the rest of his life in prison if he was returned to the U.S.

The court's ruling was made public on Wednesday and was open for appeal. Any final extradition order would also need to get approval from the Spanish Cabinet.

The entrepreneur was arrested last October at Barcelona's international airport. A judge ordered at that time that McAfee should be held in jail while awaiting the outcome of a hearing on extradition.

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