Gary McKinnon, the British computer hacker who cracked open the Pentagon and NASA systems in the US, has lost his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights and could face immediate extradition to the US to stand trial.
His lawyers indicated on Thursday night that they were urging the UK home secretary to allow McKinnon to stand trial in the UK as he had recently been diagnosed as suffering from Asperger’s syndrome.
McKinnon, 42, from Bounds Green, north London, who has been described in the US as the biggest military hacker of all time, faces a series of charges in the US in connection with hacking activities that took place nearly 10 years ago. He is alleged to have broken into 53 US Army, 26 US Navy and 16 NASA computer systems and to have caused US$700,000 in damage to the systems, in which he left disparaging messages about their security arrangements.
LOST APPEAL
He lost his appeal against extradition in the UK House of Lords, the UK’s highest court of appeal, following a hearing last month in which it was argued that if he were to stand trial, it should be in the UK. He was granted a temporary stay by the European court on Aug. 12 after applying to it for “interim relief.” The temporary stay was lifted on Thursday.
“The offenses for which our client’s extradition is sought were committed on British soil and we maintain that any prosecution of our client ought therefore to be carried out by the appropriate British authorities,” his lawyer, Karen Todner, said on Thursday. “Our client faces the prospect of prosecution and imprisonment thousands of miles away from his family in a country in which he has never set foot.”
‘WORRYING TREND’
Todner added: “Our client’s case highlights a worrying trend where UK citizens are at the mercy of the ever-increasing tendency of overseas prosecutors to extend their jurisdiction to crimes allegedly committed in this country.”
As McKinnon had been diagnosed as suffering from Asperger’s syndrome, she was writing to UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, inviting a prosecution in this country.
James Welch, legal director of Liberty, said: “It is a shame that the court of human rights will allow his extradition even as they consider whether US extradition measures were fair.”
McKinnon, 42, was inspired as a teenager in 1983 by the film WarGames, in which a teenager hacks into the Pentagon system. He started hacking into US military and space computer systems because he believed they contained information about UFOs.
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