Protracted extradition proceedingshave turnedUFO hacker Gary McKinnoninto a
nervous wreck who is on medication to quell his suicidal
tendencies,his mother, Janis Sharp, told MPs
yesterday.
In the light of Gary McKinnon's hearings, the chairman of the
Home Affairs Select Committee has questioned whether the
Human
Rights Act is fit for purpose.
The Human Rights Act is so exacting that
Gary McKinnon's risk of suicide might not be sufficient to engage
its protections and prevent his extradition.
The threat of extradition was having a detrimental effect on
McKinnon's mental health, said Janis Sharp, McKinnon's campaigning
mother.
She told MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee: "It has
ruined Gary's life... it has destroyed him. If the door goes, he
jumps. If someone touches him, he jumps. He has incredible chest
pains every morning."
McKinnon, who has
Asperger's
Syndrome, became suicidal last month after the High Court threw
out his appeal against extradition on human rights grounds. He was
put on medication. "He would rather be dead than be extradited,
that's the reality," Sharp said.
Mark Lever, head of the
National Autistic Society, told MPs that extradition, by taking
an Aspergic far from familiar surroundings and family, could have a
severe effect on their mental health.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson told the same committee that he was
reviewing whether McKinnon's deteriorating health warranted the
government's intervention in his extradition on the grounds that it
breached his human rights.
The High Court threw out McKinnon's last legal challenge to
extradition on the same grounds, because the threshold of pain
after which the Human Rights Act (HRA) is engaged was so high that,
even were someone extradited in full knowledge that it would lead
to their likely death, it could not intervene unless someone faced
a prosecuting authority that actually intended to treat them
inhumanely.
Home Affairs Select Committee chairman Keith Vaz MP told
Computer Weekly after the meeting that it must be asked whether the
HRA threshold was set too high.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson reminded the committee how the US
had assured McKinnon's Aspergic vulnerabilities would be
accommodated in trial and prison.
This had been enough to persuade the High Court that the HRA
threshold had not been reached. Moreover, the court had repeated
claims that evidence of the tragic effect of removal and
incarceration on Aspergics was too patchy to count.
The
National Autistic Society's Mark Lever told the committee that
researchers were examining the matter.
Anecdotal evidence suggested a disproportionate number of those
in prison had Asperger's Syndrome. Some academics assert that
the entire criminal justice system, from arrest to incarceration,
is unfair to autistics.
These wider matters were not put to or raised by the Home
Secretary. He was asked to explain why he had not intervened in
McKinnon's case. He said the 2003 Extradition Act had been designed
to prevent Home Secretaries exercising their political or personal
discretion.
"I don't think these decisions should be made on whether someone
has a popular newspaper in favour of them or whether
famous pop stars are making records about them," he said. "This
is about justice, not about popular causes."
For the same reason, Johnson has refused to meet with McKinnon's
mother. Johnson has also refused to make representations to the US
government for clemency in McKinnon's case, which his supporters
believe is a trifling matter that has dragged on too long to the
tragic detriment of a vulnerable man.
For the same reason, Johnson told the committee, he agreed with
the decision of the High Court, the Director of Public Prosecutions
and US Department of Justice, on the matter of whether McKinnon
could be tried in the UK.
Their preference for a US trial on the basis of cost precluded
any consideration of McKinnon's human rights, the High Court heard
in the summer.
Only justice could intervene, Johnson asserted. He gave no
indication that the law as it stands might be failing McKinnon and
other people with Asperger's syndrome, whose condition was yet
poorly understood.
Gary McKinnon - an interactive timeline:
McKinnon - The
trials and tribulations on
Dipity.
Gary McKinnon, Chrissie Hynde and Janis Sharp talk to ITN:
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