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Cabinet minister Peter Hain has criticised the way the government has handled the case of British computer hacker Gary McKinnon.
The Wales secretary said on Monday that McKinnon, an Asperger's sufferer who hacked into US military networks, was "a kind of computer geek zapping the American defence system".
The frontbencher said that the accusations should have been dealt with in a "British context", rather than extraditing the 43-year old to the US to face trial.
Hain told the Daily Mail: “After all he was sitting in his bedroom by his computer, as a kind of computer geek zapping the American defence system, and therefore he was committing an offence on British soil.
"I have got a lot of sympathy for Gary McKinnon and his mum, who is a very brave woman fighting for his rights. He has got Asperger's syndrome which does tend to produce the kind of behaviour that is very compulsive."
The High Court ruled on Friday that the Home Office decision to extradite the computer hacker did not breach his human rights under the European convention.
Home secretary Alan Johnson told the Times on Sunday that he could not have stopped McKinnon's extradition.
Johnson wrote that the ruling emphasised that "it would be unlawful for the home secretary to intervene to prevent his extradition".
"The home secretary can prevent extradition only in very specific circumstances: where the person in question could be sentenced to death if convicted; where there is a chance that a person will be tried for crimes committed before that extradition that were not specified in the request; or where the person has previously been extradited to the UK from another country, or transferred here by the International Criminal Court and no consent has been given to them being extradited elsewhere," he added.
"If none of these circumstances apply – which is true of McKinnon’s case – then it’s black and white. It would be breaking the law for a home secretary not to order extradition."
The prime minister's spokeswoman on Monday backed the line taken by the home secretary, rejecting Hain's stance.
The home secretary had set out that it was "very clear cut" that the government could not intervene in this instance, the spokeswoman said.
"I think that the prime minister thinks that the legal position is as set out," she added.
But she also said that the prime minister had complete confidence in Hain.
Article Comments
I think it is quite astonishing that the Government should claim to be abiding by the law in this case. It hasn't bothered them when going to war!
John R Holmes
3rd Aug 2009 at 5:47 pm
I think that any person with the equipment and the expertise to hack into any system should take the consequences for doing so.
Unless people are punished severely for this type of offence, it will just be considered a game by the criminals ( that I feel is what they are) that undertake to do this.
Bill Rogers
3rd Aug 2009 at 3:27 pm
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