Alan Johnson’s statement yesterday, that there was nothing legally he could now do to prevent the extradition of Gary McKinnon to the US to stand trial for hacking into the Pentagon’s computers, is a feeble response to an unfolding personal tragedy. In fact there are at least two things he could do. He could insist that on compassionate grounds, based on the diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrone, extradition would constitute a cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore McKinnon would be brought to trial in the UK. He could also insist that in the light of this case, and also of the previous case of the National Westminster 3, it was clear that the 2003 Extradition Act which underpinned these cases was one-sided and prejudicial to Britain’s interests and therefore would be renegotiated to ensure equal and balanced rights and obligations applying to both the US and UK alike. The fact however that the Government has tamely chosen to let matters take their course and not intervene shames this country. It also exposes a dark corner in the relations between the US and the UK which urgently requires reform.

What McKinnon, now aged 43, did over a period of some 7 years in hacking into Nasa, the Pentagon and other US military installations is not in doubt: he has admitted as much. The issue is how his offence should now be handled, given his medical condition (Asperger’s is a form of autism which prompts obsessive behaviour such as compulsive internet use), his lack of malevolent motive (a passion for UFOs, not handing US military secrets to the enemy), and the post-9/11 paranoia in the US which could be construed as preventing a fair and balance trial. It seems however that none of these considerations swayed the High Court which on Friday ruled that extradition to the US was a “lawful and proportionate response to Gary McKinnon’s offending”. It did not however make explicit what weight, if any, was given to each of these mitigating circumstances.
It has to be asked how Britain ever came to sign up to a treaty with the US which removed the requirement for the US to provide prima facie evidence when requesting the extradition of any UK citizen, but still requires the UK to provide prima facie evidence to the US when seeking the extradition of a US citizen to Britain. The ostensible justification for this gross imbalance was that it was designed to streamline the extradition of terrorist suspects following the destruction of the Twin Towers in 2001. But this rationale is faulty on two grounds – it is a highly questionable weakening of an important legal safeguard, and even if that were not so, there is no conceivable excuse for making it apply one-way only.
The real motive behind this unjust legislation will of course never be admitted. But it is a reasonable assumption that it was a desire, under American pressure, to accommodate the US determination to exact revenge in the highly inflamed post-9/11 situation. As such it was an act of vassalage which should now be reversed before any more damage is done to the principles of morality, fairness and balance as the McKinnon case so starkly illustrates.

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