Alien Hacker wins extradition delay

Hacker wins extradition delay Updated 12.39 Tue Aug 12 2008

A British UFO enthusiast accused of the "biggest military hack of all time" has won a two-week delay on his extradition to the US.

Gary McKinnon, an unemployed 42-year-old, lost his House of Lords appeal against the extradition last month and faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted in the US of sabotaging vital defence systems.

Gary McKinnon faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted in the US of sabotaging vital defence systems

But his solicitors announced he had won a stay until August 28 by the European Court of Human Rights.

A brief statement said he has been granted "interim relief" until that date "for his application to be heard before the full chamber".

The House of Lords rejected a plea by McKinnon, who was never charged in Britain after admitting accessing 97 US military and Nasa computers, to quash an extradition request granted to the US authorities in 2006.

Lawyers for McKinnon pointed out that he could be sent to Guantanamo Bay as a terrorist suspect - despite his insistence that he accessed Pentagon computers looking for information about UFOs.

From the bedroom of his girlfriend's aunt's house in north London, he hacked into 97 American military computers at the Pentagon and Nasa between 2001 and 2002.

McKinnon never denied that he wandered around the computer networks of a wide number of US military institutions.

But he has always maintained that he was motivated by curiosity and that he managed to get into the networks only because of lax security.

US authorities claim he stole 950 passwords and deleted files at Earle Naval Weapons Station in New Jersey.

He was also charged with hacking into 16 Nasa computers and one US Defence Department computer.

McKinnon said he was motivated by curiosity and was looking for evidence that the US government had information on UFOs. He described his exploits as "ridiculously" easy.

On August 28 the full chamber of the European Court of Human Rights will hear McKinnon's application to halt his extradition, when it will be argued that his human rights will be infringed if he is sent to the US.

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