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Hacker remains in limbo

February 10 2011 at 08:39am
By Michael Seamark and James Slack

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Reuters

Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg.

Gary McKinnon’s mother is demanding a meeting with Nick Clegg to urge him to “do the right thing” and stop her son’s extradition.

Before he became Deputy Prime Minister the Liberal Democrat leader was implacable in his opposition to sending the computer hacker to the US..

Gary’s mother Janis Sharp now wants Mr Clegg to keep his pre-election promises and end her son’s ordeal.

“He stood by my side 14 months ago demonstrating outside the Home Office and demanded that Gary could - and should - be kept in the UK, she said.

“When the Coalition came into power the relief we felt was indescribable. I believed our new government would announce that Gary would not be extradited but be tried in the UK. Nine months later he is still in limbo.”

Next month it will be nine years since Gary was arrested and ten since his alleged crime. His mother said: “He has effectively served a longer sentence than most murderers and rapists. Nick Clegg said my son had been hung out to dry by the previous government to appease the Americans.

“I just want him to remember - and honour - those words and not fall into the same trap.”

Expert opinions obtained by Mr McKinnon’s legal team have stated that because of his mental condition, suicide was an “almost certain inevitability” should he be sent to the US. Home Secretary Theresa May agreed to halt the extradition last year, saying she wanted to ensure he was treated “fairly”.

Mrs Sharp is now at loggerheads with the Home Office over the choice of an independent expert to reassess the Asperger’s patient, who is 45 today.

She said: “Gary has been assessed by four of the UK and Europe’s leading psychiatrists and now the Home Office wants him re-assessed by yet another and unbelievably, I am having to fight to ensure it is an expert in Asperger’s and autism.”

Mr McKinnon was searching for evidence of “little green men” when he hacked into Nasa and Pentagon computers.

Since the Daily Mail launched its An Affront to British Justice campaign to highlight the case, Ministers have announced a review of the lop-sided Extradition treaty which allows the US and EU countries to have British citizens sent for trial abroad, without presenting the level of evidence which would be needed for prosecution in the UK. - Daily Mail

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