Gary McKinnon: Why Lauri Love should be spared the nightmare of extradition

Extradition treaty is deeply flawed

This admission by the CPS made it clear that officials in Washington have the power to extradite any UK citizen on the basis of allegations alone.

This deeply flawed extradition treaty has been misused time and time again. Why the UK agreed to it has never been disclosed. Tellingly, the first drafts of the treaty were written using American spelling. Even Baroness Scotland who was fronting the treaty’s introduction in the UK called it “necessarily imbalanced”.

US government prosecutors routinely overstate the seriousness of hacking offences, hugely inflate the costs of “repairing” systems and do their best to make the defendant appear highly dangerous.

“What effect did Lauri’s alleged actions have on the US? No one died, no one was hurt. There is no suggestion that he committed fraud, acted for personal gain, or exposed personal information”

Gary McKinnon, former hacker

We’ve seen it before. Mathew Bevan was called “the worst threat to national security since Hitler”, after hacking US computer systems from a Commodore Amiga computer. My own intrusions were labelled “the biggest military hack ever”.

The US authorities should be spending their energies on improving the security of their own networks, which are breached many times each year both by amateur hackers and foreign governments.

What effect did Lauri’s alleged actions have on the US? No one died, no one was hurt. He is accused of looking around computer systems and taking copies of documents. There is no suggestion that he committed fraud, acted for personal gain, or exposed personal information.

Extradition madness

The effect of extradition is corrosive. Speaking from my own experience, the incessant worrying eats away at your nerves. The possibility of spending decades, possibly the rest of your life, in a foreign jail always haunts you.

You develop your own form of madness. It’s a nightmare that wages a war of attrition on your already damaged mental health. And one of the worst things is watching the destructive effect it has on your family.

I made up my mind that I couldn’t go to the US if I lost the case. I bought enough potassium chloride – the third chemical in the trio of lethal injections used in US executions – to stop my heart. I knew that otherwise I would be put under pressure to plead guilty and threatened with a disproportionate jail sentence if I did not agree.

Mentally ill people can be treated like animals once incarcerated. Prison staff are not able to provide the medical or psychological attention they need, though the US authorities promise they will. It’s hard enough serving a long sentence in a foreign jail, but when you’re on the autistic spectrum, like myself and Lauri Love, it’s many times harder.

Courage to say no

I was fortunate that Theresa May, then home secretary, had the strength to make one of the most compassionate political decisions ever. I can only hope that for Lauri and his family the horror will end soon, and that the current home secretary, Amber Rudd, together with the courts, will display the same courage by refusing Lauri Love’s extradition.

I think it fitting to finish with a quote from Lauri’s father, who spoke after a judge had allowed his son’s extradition in September 2016:

“We’ve had a big discussion about who can come in to this country. Let’s have a big discussion about who can be taken out.”