Calls grow to save autistic Scots hacker from threat of US prison

PRESSURE is growing on the Home Secretary to step in and halt the extradition of a Scots-born autistic computer hacker who is facing up to 60 years in a US prison.

Shadow justice minister David Burrowes MP was today set to put down a motion in parliament calling on Jacqui Smith to review the medical records of Gary McKinnon who is only weeks away from being sent to the US.

Mr McKinnon's supporters claim he was merely looking for information on his UFO hobby rather than being "the biggest military computer hacker of all time" as the US claims.

The supporters say the unemployed UFO obsessive, who suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, has become a recluse and is on suicide watch after becoming depressed while awaiting his looming extradition.

In the US he faces life in prison for using his dial-up modem to hack into computer systems at the Pentagon and at Nasa between 2001 and 2003.

The Glasgow-born 42-year-old went from being a cannabis-smoking hacker looking for conspiracy theories on UFOs to America's most wanted cyber-terrorist after 9/11.

So far, an appeal to the House of Lords has been rejected and now Mr McKinnon's legal team is waiting for a judgment on a judicial review which it has asked for in light of his recent diagnosis with Asperger's.

A decision on the review is due imminently. Should this be turned down, he will have just ten days to pack his bags, possibly never to return.

Mr Burrowes, his MP, is demanding his extradition be halted until his condition has been more carefully assessed. Last night he said: "My concern is also over this extradition treaty where UK citizens are being plucked out of our country without evidence and facing the full force of the American law."

The Home Secretary is also facing pressure to ensure Mr McKinnon is at least allowed to return to the UK on bail before the many months that could await him before a trial.

Mr Burrowes pointed out nationals of countries such as Israel and the Netherlands are allowed to serve their sentences at home, and asked why Mr McKinnon has to be sent to America.