The widow of John McAfee has launched a campain for his body to be released from a Spanish morgue, nearly a year after the cyber security pioneer died in a Catalan prison.

Janice McAfee questioned the motives of Spanish authorities, who have held her husband’s body ever since conducting an official autopsy that allegedly confirmed a death by suicide while he was awaiting extradition to the US.

Mrs McAfee has questioned the official narrative, claiming that McAfee was not suicidal and that attempts to carry out an independent autopsy have been blocked by the delay in releasing his body.

“If there were any credibility to that suicide story, then why are they not allowing us to have an independent autopsy? Why can’t we get there autopsy report?” Mrs McAfee said in an interview with YouTube channel Rice TVx this week.

“There’s no reason why there should be so many delays. I mean it could be just incompetence on behalf of the Spanish [authorities] but I just feel that there may be something more sinister that’s happened here.

“There’s just too many things that have happened that just don’t add up. They were so quick to rush the story of a suicide but yet they won’t give us the autopsy report, they won’t release his body – they don’t need to continue to keep his body, there’s nothing more that they need to do with it... Why they won’t release it doesn’t make any sense unless they have something to hide.”

An online petition calling for McAfee’s body to be returned to his widow was set up this week, aiming to collect 100,000 signatures to help “shed light” and provide a “conclusion for the mysterious circumstances surrounding the demise of the founder of McAfee Anti-Virus”.

Without McAfee’s body, Mrs McAfee has been unable to hold a funeral and has remained in Spain while awaiting his remains.

“It’s inexcusable why they would keep his remains for so long,” she said in the interview. “Obviously they’re hiding something and I feel like an independent autopsy will help to get some answers as to what possibly might have happened to him and how he died.”

A piece of paper found on McAfee’s body, which authorities claimed was a suicide note, was shared by Mrs McAfee last July. She believes it was a draft of a tweet, which he shared with her during phone calls from prison to post on the social network site.

“This note does not sound anything like someone who has no hope and is contemplating ending their life,” she wrote last July. “This note sounds like one of John’s tweets.”

Lawyers representing McAfee’s daughter Jen said in February that the legal process could last the entirety of 2022 before his remains are returned to family.

“It is my understanding it could take months for a higher court to rule on the lower-court judge’s [ruling of suicide],” Joy Athanasiou told MarketWatch. “And if the decision is the police report/ autopsy was not thorough enough, there could be a re-investigation and medical examination of some sort that would take several more months.”

The Independent has reached out for comment from Spanish Judge Victor Espigares Jiminez, who has presided over the investigation into McAfee’s cause of death.