A letter to Obama will ask him to abandon McKinnon extradition

A letter to Barack Obama signed by MPs and Peers will call on the President not to extradite British hacker Gary McKinnon who faces up to 60 years in a maximum security prison if found guilty.

The 43-year-old UFO obsessive, who suffers from Asperges syndrome, a mild form of Autism, carried out the ‘largest military hack of all time’ in 2002 – hacking into the computer systems of NASA, The US Army, Department of Defence and US Air Force.

McKinnon, who was looking for proof of UFOs, was originally indicted in 2002 and in 2006 the UK agreed to extradite him for trial. Subsequent appeals to the House of Lords and European Court of Human Rights have failed.

Mr McKinnon’s local MP, David Burrowes, said: “We need to take it further and call upon Barack Obama himself to take action as the pleas have fallen on deaf ears so far.”

The letter from The National Autistic Society calls for Obama to allow McKinnon to face trial in the UK on the grounds that extradition might lead to a deterioration in his health.

Legal experts have said that if McKinnon were to face trial, it should be in the UK regardless, as any crimes he committed were committed in British territory.

The case highlights the unbalanced Bush era US – UK extradition treaty which was designed to facilitate the fast extradition of Islamic fundamentalist, not eccentric Scottish systems administrators.

(Via Guardian)