The High Court has thrown out Pentagon hacker's last
chance of having his extradition stopped in the British courts on
humanitarian grounds.
The court turned down a petition by the former IT systems
administrator, Gary McKinnon's to have his case refered to the
Supreme Court on the
grounds that extradition would contrevene his
human rights.
"His extradition is a lawful and proportionate response to his
alleged offending," said
Lord Justice
Stanley Burnton in the judgment.
McKinnon, who suffers from Aspergers syndrome, a form of autism,
will now appeal for the Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, and the
European Court of Human Rights to intervene on humanitarian
grounds.
Edward Fitzgerald QC, McKinnon's lawyer, said: "We will be
writing with a psychological report to the Home Secretary today,
highlighting the dramatic deterioration of his psychological
condition.
Since McKinnon was diagnosed last summer with Asperger's, a
condition that makes him socially inept and psychologically
vulnerable, he has tried to have the US extradition order stopped,
claiming it would be cruel to put him through such an ordeal when
he could simply be prosecuted at home.
McKinnon brought his battle to the High Court almost a year ago
to the day when the Home Secretary declared that autism was no
reason to prevent a British citizen being sent from his own country
to stand trial in a foreign court.
In his application to the court, Fitzgerald had argued that to
put someone as vulnerable as McKinnon through extradition would
breach the Human Rights Act (HRA), which protects people from to
torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It would
also breach his right to the support of his family under the same
law by sending such a vulnerable man to face justice so far from
home.
The case centred on just how much pain and hardship the justice
system could put people through before it reached a "threshold" of
suffering that activated HRA protections. The Home Secretary argued
that the threshold must be very high to trump the UK's extradition
treaty with the United States - so high that even if, as doctors
have warned is the case, McKinnon's suffering were likely to be so
intense that the ordeal of extradition would cause him to take his
own life.
Fitzgerald's argued that as it was possible to prosecute
McKinnon in the UK (there is dual jurisdiction in trans-national
hacking cases) then this should be done because it would avoid
putting McKinnon through the ordeal of execution. But the Director
of Public prosecutions refused a UK prosecution on practical
grounds - that it would be too expensive.
Karen Todner, McKinnon's solicitor, said McKinnon would appeal
again to the European Court of Human Rights.
"Why is our government so inhumane to allow this to happen to
someone, particularly someone with Aspergers?" she said outside the
court.
Janis Sharpe, McKinnon's mother, called the judgement
"perverse". She said: "They say the courts are not supposed to be
political but they are."
The High Court had already thrown out these arguments once.
McKinnon had sought permission to put them before the supreme court
but today's judgment refuses him that right.
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