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20 May 2010
Home secretary Theresa May has adjourned the pending judicial review of Nasa hacker Gary McKinnon while she reviews the case, offering his supporters the first glimpse that the government may be about to refuse his extradition to the US.
Breaking reports suggest that May, who was appointed last week as part of the David Cameron administration, is now looking at McKinnon's medical evidence to assess whether he is fit to stand trial in the US.
Former Labour home secretary Alan Johnson is said to have ignored expert medical evidence late last year when he ruled that the 44 year-old Londoner was fit enough to be extradited.
The Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties came out in support of McKinnon's plea to be tried in the UK when in opposition, and his mother Janis Sharp said at the weekend that she is confident that the new government will halt the extradition.
"Everyone's promised it - Nick Clegg, Chris Huhne, David Cameron, Dominic Grieve - they all slated the Labour government for pursuing it and said it has to stop and they promised if they get into power this would happen, so we're very, very happy about that," she told the BBC.
McKinnon admitted hacking into the computer systems of the Pentagon and Nasa in 2001 and 2002, claiming that he was looking for evidence of extraterrestrial life.
He has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, and is reported to have been suicidal in recent months at the prospect of being incarcerated in a maximum security US jail.
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Americans themselves rule out extradition
I thought we didn't extradite to countries which practice TORTURE. ????? ( other than when it suits a Labour government or certain members of it )
Posted by: John Hardy 08 Jun 2010
He MUST stay here.
We must not be brow beaten by the USA. If he is tried by a UK court he will be treated with the compassion that he needs and deserves. This crime occured many years ago. A US chaingang and all the trauma being many miles from friends and family will I am certain take this man to breaking point (I am not a medical specialist, I do know though how I would feel). Tell the Yanks NO.
Posted by: dlw 21 May 2010
Hacking the Pentagon
The Americans should pay McKinnon for showing up the American Security Systems as rubbish. In my honest opinion, this case has dragged on because the New Labour Cabal, Blair, Brown and all, were up the American's arses in a stupid alliance that has taken Britain and Europe into a war of deposing leaderships that threaten the American Petro-Dollar. The Americans do not like being proved wrong or that their mighty Armies can be defeated and they have not learned anything from Vietnam. When the British Government takes back the death penalty for first degree murder (presently eight years), or the murder of police officers, I will agree to extraditing British citizens to America. Sixty years for hacking the Pentagon; they should invite McKinnon to be President and if he is nuts, he will have plenty soul mates in the great US of A.
Posted by: Stephen Mark 20 May 2010
McKinnon should be given a job
lets face it anyone who can hack into this system should be employed by this system to stop further hackers getting in not put in prison and NOT in the usa, if someone in the usa did this to the uk would we get them in front of our courts NO , bloody yanks think they rule the world
Posted by: Barry J Johnstone 20 May 2010
The wrong person to put on trial
According to something McKinnon said that was reported in the computer press a year or two ago, some of the USA computers were easy to "hack" into because they had no passwords or had the manufacturers' default passwords. Therefore, I think the people who should be put on trial are not McKinnon but the people who managed those computers and didn't apply elementary security principles. Perhaps McKinnon should be thanked for exposing this.
Posted by: oliverw 20 May 2010