Britain Refuses to Extradite Hacker Sought in U.S. - NYTimes.com

Britain Refuses to Extradite Hacker Sought in U.S. - NYTimes.com

Britain Refuses to Extradite Computer Hacker Sought in U.S.

By ALAN COWELL and JOHN F. BURNS

LONDON — British authorities on Tuesday blocked a longstanding demand for the extradition of Gary McKinnon, a computer hacker wanted in the United States to face charges of intruding into Pentagon computer networks in a case that has become a touchstone of the delicate jurisdictional balance between the two countries since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Shaun Curry/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Gary McKinnon, a British hacker, left the High Court in London in 2009.

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Mr. McKinnon, 46, who has been facing the accusations for a decade, has Asperger syndrome and is prone to depression, British officials said.

In light of the “high risk” that the suspect would commit suicide if sent to the United States, Home Secretary Theresa May told Parliament she had “withdrawn the extradition order against Mr. McKinnon” to safeguard his human rights.

American prosecutors say that Mr. McKinnon gained unauthorized access to 97 government computers between February 2001 and March 2002, causing damage worth $566,000. While he has admitted hacking into Pentagon networks, he insists that he did so to seek evidence about unidentified flying objects.

American officials have described his actions as “the biggest military computer hack of all time.”American authorities sought his extradition under a 2003 treaty that, British critics of the legislation assert, was designed to help prosecute terrorists but that has been misused by American prosecutors as a catchall measure in less onerous cases unrelated to national security.

Ms. May’s ruling was said by legal experts to be the first time that Britain had publicly thwarted an American demand made under the contentious treaty, which enables American authorities to seek extradition of suspects without providing substantive evidence of their purported crimes.

“Mr. McKinnon is accused of serious crimes,” Ms. May said. “But there is also no doubt that he is seriously ill. He has Asperger syndrome, and suffers from depressive illness. The legal question before me is now whether the extent of that illness is sufficient to preclude extradition.”

She continued, “After careful consideration of all of the relevant material, I have concluded that Mr. McKinnon’s extradition would give rise to such a high risk of him ending his life that a decision to extradite would be incompatible with Mr. McKinnon’s human rights.”

A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice, Rebekah Carmichael, said Tuesday that “the United States is disappointed” by the decision not to extradite Mr. McKinnon but that “our extradition relationship with the United Kingdom remains strong.”

British critics of the extradition treaty have said the pact effectively outsources British judicial responsibilities to the United States without securing reciprocal benefits or distinguishing between serious and lesser crimes.

David Blunkett, the former home secretary who signed the treaty, said in 2010 that he might have “given too much away” to American prosecutors when the pact was framed.

Last year British legislators urged the government to change the procedures. Dominic Raab, a lawmaker for the governing Conservatives, said at the time that Mr. McKinnon should not be treated “like a gangland mobster or Al Qaeda mastermind.”

Rights campaigners hailed the ruling. Shami Chakrabarti, the director of the civil rights group Liberty, called it “a great day for rights, freedoms and justice in the United Kingdom.”

Mr. McKinnon was first arrested in 2002, and then again in 2005. An order for his extradition was made in July 2006 under the 2003 treaty, but Mr. McKinnon’s family, his lawyers and rights campaigners began a series of legal battles.

The case has generated such intense interest in Britain that Prime Minister David Cameron has discussed it with President Obama, British officials said.

Since 2006, three of Ms. May’s predecessors as home secretary have supported extradition, prompting both a public outcry and further legal moves to prevent Mr. McKinnon’s removal.

His immediate fate in the British justice system remained unclear.

In 2009, the Crown Prosecution Service said that while the evidence against Mr. McKinnon justified charges of “unauthorized access with intent,” it “does not come near to reflecting the criminality that is alleged by the American authorities.”

The ruling on Tuesday came days after the British authorities ended another long-running extradition battle by sending five terrorism suspects, including the firebrand cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, to face trial in the United States on an array of charges. The men had been resisting extradition for many years.

British authorities are still locked in a protracted effort to send another prominent Muslim cleric to Jordan to face charges. The preacher, who is known as Abu Qatada but whose real name is Omar Mahmoud Mohammed Othman, has been opposing extradition for seven years and has spent long periods in detention or under restriction in Britain for more than a decade.

A version of this article appeared in print on October 17, 2012, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Britain: Extradition of Hacker To United States Is Blocked.