Gary McKinnon, the British hacker who is accused of having disturbed American military computers at Pentagon and NASA managed to convince the European Court of Human Rights to delay his extradition to the U.S. The man, who is an unemployed network administrator, can stay in the U.K. until August 28, when the court is expected to take the final decision in the case, according to an ITN report.

On July 31, the House of Lords rejected his plea to be judged in the U.K., so the man decided to appeal this decision at the European Court of Human Rights. Indeed, the justice court delayed his extradition with a little over two weeks, which offers the defendant enough time to consolidate his final pleading. In case he doesn't manage to convince the judges that his only purpose, when entering forbidden military webpages, was to find some insight details on UFOs, he will be extradited and judged by an American High Court.

This perspective really is a cloud on the horizon for the defendant, as he is subject to tens of years in prison. The normal penalty, in case he pleads guilty, is of three to four years, but things might get complicated if he doesn't cooperate with the authorities because his hacks followed the September 11 attacks, which may suggest terrorist behavior.

"Having gained access to these computers the appellant deleted data from them including critical operating system files from nine computers, the deletion of which shut down the entire US Army's Military District of Washington network of over 2000 computers for 24 hours, significantly disrupting Governmental functions," said the House of Lords document released after the verdict that sent McKinnon to face the American justice. Besides the risks military networks had been exposed to, the damages created by the fact that they couldn't function for a while were evaluated at $700,000.