Computer hacker Gary McKinnon will not be extradited to the United States, British home secretary Theresa May said today.
Mrs May stopped his extradition on human rights grounds after medical reports showed the 46-year-old was very likely to try to kill himself if extradited.
The 46-year-old, who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome - a high-functioning form of autism - admits hacking into US military computers but claims he was looking for evidence of UFOs.
Home Office medical evidence reportedly shows he is very likely to try to take his own life if extradited to the United States, where he faces up to 60 years in prison if convicted.
The ups and downs of his 10-year fight have been so cruel they amount to “waterboarding of the mind”, his mother, Janis Sharp, claimed.
Ms Sharp said the US stance on the case had appeared to soften this summer, with government adviser John Arquilla saying the US should be recruiting elite computer hackers to launch cyber-attacks against terrorists, instead of prosecuting them.
Earlier, she admitted she was “still scared” ahead of the decision. “It’s like waterboarding of the mind - you’re elated, you’re down, it’s so cruel,” Ms Sharp said, referring to the simulated drowning technique which became notorious after its use by CIA interrogators on Guantánamo Bay detainees.
British prime minister David Cameron has raised Mr McKinnon’s case with US president Barack Obama twice. Both Mr Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg have previously publicly condemned plans to send Mr McKinnon to the United States.
Mr McKinnon, from Wood Green, north London, was arrested in 2002 and then again in 2005 before an order for his extradition was made in July 2006 under the 2003 Extradition Act. That triggered three successive applications for judicial review and questions over the fairness of the UK-US extradition treaty, which critics claim is “one-sided”.
An independent review of the United Kingdom’s extradition arrangements by Sir Scott Baker last year found the current treaty between the United and the United Kingdom was balanced and fair. The government is under pressure to ignore its findings after MPs called on ministers to bring forward new laws and attempt to change the UK-US extradition treaty.
PA