14 DAY TRIAL // The appeal which aimed at avoiding the extradition of the Briton responsible for what is considered to be the biggest military hack in history was rejected by the European Court of Human Rights, according to The Register. Before even judging the case, the high court decided to step aside from the litigation and did not accept the man's plea. Garry McKinnon was arrested in the UK, his home country, six years ago, but has never been charged. Meanwhile, US authorities, in an attempt to get him extradited, filed a lawsuit against him.
McKinnon was given a negative sentence by the High Court back in 2006, but appealed the extradition decision to the House of Lords, the highest judicial authority in the UK. Since his extradition was once and for all decided there too, the man thought that the European Court of Human Rights would be the last resort to help him be judged in his country.
Apparently, he is the only one to consider that UK triers can properly evaluate the damage done when he accessed 97 Pentagon and NASA computers. Since his hacking closely followed the September 11 attacks, he may be charged with terrorism, accusation that can put him behind bars for the rest of his life. As we previously reported, the penalty in case he pleads guilty in front of an American court could be diminished to three to four years in prison. But McKinnon claimed from the very first moment that all he tried to do when accessing the forbidden websites was to obtain details on UFOs, that he believed the American government was concealing.
"They should be employing him to find the holes in their security system, not prosecuting him. He has Asperger’s syndrome, which should be taken into consideration as it's a high functioning type of Autism which would make him very obsessive. I think he should get 1 year in a UK jail, that would be sufficient," says one supporter, commenting on a SkyNews article reporting on the case.