Photograph by Elliott Brown
Home Secretary Theresa May has announced that British computer hacker Gary McKinnon will not be extradited to the US to face trial and a possible 60 years in jail for hacking into US government computers in 2002.
McKinnon admits breaching the security of US government computers, but claims he was looking for evidence of UFOs, and has been fighting extradition since 2002. The Home Secretary blocked his extradition on the basis of his human rights as he is “seriously ill” and has said that the extradition warrant against him should be withdrawn.
She said it was now for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, to determine whether he should face trial in the UK for the “serious crimes” for which he is accused.
Mrs May said:
He has Asperger’s syndrome, and suffers from depressive illness. The legal question before me is now whether the extent of that illness is sufficient to preclude extradition…
After careful consideration of all of the relevant material, I have concluded that Mr McKinnon’s extradition would give rise to such a high risk of him ending his life that a decision to extradite would be incompatible with Mr McKinnon’s human rights.
This is the first time a secretary of state has intervened in an extradition to the US under the current treaty – the 2003 Extradition Act.
Mrs May also said she would initiate the creation of a “forum bar” that would enable a UK court to decide whether a person should stand trial in the UK or abroad saying “extradition decisions must not only be fair, they must be seen to be fair. And they must be made in open court where decisions can be challenged and explained”.
Whilst McKinnon claims to have only hacked into the US government computers to obtain information about UFOs, US authorities have described his actions as the “biggest military computer hack of all time” which was “intentional and calculated to influence and affect the US government by intimidation and coercion”. They claim his actions caused $800,000 worth of damage to military computer systems.
McKinnon previously lost his extradition appeals at the High Court and the House of Lords, but in 2009 a High Court judge and earlier this year Home Office appointed psychiatrists assessed that Mr McKinnon was at risk of suicide if extradited to face trial the US.
Here’s a video of Gary McKinnon explaining why he hacked into the US governmental computers and what he found:
