Home Secretary Alan Johnson faced numerous MPs in the debate in the Chamber of the House of Commons
Commons Hansard 1 Dec 2009 : Column 975 Gary McKinnon (Extradition)
Gary McKinnon (Extradition)
3.34 pmMr. David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con) (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on his decision not to intervene to stop Gary McKinnon's extradition to the United States.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing this urgent question on behalf of my constituent.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Alan Johnson): Gary McKinnon is accused of serious criminal offences. He is alleged to have repeatedly hacked into US Government computer networks over a period of 13 months, including 97 US military computers from which he deleted vital operating systems and then copied encrypted information on to his own computer, shutting down the entire US army's military district of Washington's computer network for 24 hours. During interviews under caution, Mr. McKinnon admitted to much of the conduct he is accused of.
A great deal has been made of the perceived imbalance in UK-US extradition arrangements in respect of probable cause versus reasonable suspicion. While I am clear that no such imbalance exists, as Mr. McKinnon has admitted the conduct which has given rise to the extradition request, this issue is academic in his case. This aside, under the terms of the Extradition Act 2003, I can prevent an extradition only in very specific circumstances: where the person in question could be sentenced to death if convicted; where there is a chance of that person being tried for crimes committed before that extradition which were not specified in the extradition request; or where the person has previously been extradited to the UK from another country, or transferred here by the International Criminal Court, and no consent has been given to their being extradited elsewhere.
Outside of the statutory extradition scheme, the courts have made it clear that the only circumstances in which I could prevent extradition would be where the evidence demonstrates that extradition would be a breach of human rights. If it would breach human rights to proceed with extradition, I would have to halt proceedings. If it would not, it would be unlawful for me to do so.
Mr. McKinnon has challenged his extradition in the district court, the High Court, with the Law Lords, and in the European Court of Human Rights, all of whom have ruled that the extradition should go ahead. Following the diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome in August 2008, he made fresh representations to the then Home Secretary claiming that because of his medical condition his extradition would breach the European convention on human rights. The then Home Secretary decided in October 2008 that the evidence Mr. McKinnon submitted did not meet the threshold needed to constitute a breach of the ECHR. Mr. McKinnon challenged in the High Court this decision and the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service that there were no grounds for him to be tried in this country.
On 31 July 2009, the High Court handed down both judgments. In its judgment on the Director of Public Prosecution's decision that Mr. McKinnon should be tried in the US, Lord Justice Stanley Burnton said this:
"It is true that the Claimant's offending conduct took place in this country. However, it was directed at the USA, and at computers in the USA; the information he accessed or could have accessed was US information; its confidentiality and sensitivity were American; and any damage that was inflicted was in the USA. The witnesses who can address the damage done by his offences are in America...
Gary McKinnon is not indicted in the USA on anything to do with the alleged "confidentiality and snoensitivity" of any information he may have gleaned. There are espionage allegations, only unsubstantiated claims of financial damage, not involving the theft of any money or goods.
If ,as he alleges, there were plenty of other hackers from around the world invading the same systems at the same time, then half the crucial witnesses and evidence such as United Kingdom Internet Service provider logfiles and the computer he used, are here in the UK, not in the USA. These may or may not prove that Gary was involved with one of the 97 systems at a particular time, but none of that prima facie evidence has been tested in any court, despite all the Extradition hearings and appeals.
Some of it would have been cross examined under the old extradition Act 1989, which was in force when Gary was arrested in 2002., but the retrospectively applied Extradition Act 2003 has prevented that.
However, it is not for this Court to decide where he should be prosecuted. The decision is that of the DPP. As appears from the preceding paragraphs of this judgment, he cannot be faulted for considering that, other things being equal, the Claimant should be prosecuted in the USA."
He expressed the view that it would be
"manifestly unsatisfactory in the extreme"
for Mr. McKinnon to be tried in the UK and refused permission for this aspect to be judicially reviewed.
Secondly, the Court ruled on 31 July that the decision of the Home Secretary that the extradition of Gary McKinnon to the US would not amount to a breach of his human rights was also correct. The Lord Justice said:
"Ultimately, I have to weigh the impressive medical evidence adduced by the Claimant against the severity involved in Article 3. I have no doubt that he will find extradition to, and trial and sentence and detention in the USA, very difficult indeed. His mental health will suffer. There are risks of worse, including suicide. But if I compare his condition with those considered in the authorities to which I have referred above, even taking full account of the (in my view undesirable) possibility of his being prosecuted in this country, his case does not approach Article 3 severity."
Following that decision, Mr. McKinnon's lawyers made fresh representations, including additional medical evidence. I have carefully considered those representations and I am clear that the information that his lawyers have provided is not materially different from that placed before the High Court earlier this year and does not demonstrate that sending Mr. McKinnon to the United States would breach his human rights.
There are legitimate concerns about Mr. McKinnon's health, and the United States authorities have provided assurances, which were before the High Court in July, that his needs will be met. It is also clear from the proceedings to date that there is no real risk that Mr. McKinnon, if convicted, will serve any of his sentence in a supermax prison. Should Mr. McKinnon be extradited, charged and convicted in the US and seek repatriation to the UK to serve his sentence in this country, the Government will progress his application at the very earliest opportunity.
As I have said at every stage of these proceedings, we will not commence extradition proceedings until all legal avenues that Mr. McKinnon wishes to pursue have been exhausted. He can lodge a judicial review within seven days of this decision, and he can appeal to the ECHR within 14 days of the same date. I am currently considering a request from Mr. McKinnon's lawyers for an extension of the seven-day time limit.
Apart from Rob Marris (Wolverhampton, South-West) (Lab), who can always be relied on to give his Labour front bench an easy, albeit tangential question, not a single one of the MPs who debated this Statement supported Alan Johnson.
These included:
Mr. David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
Chris Huhne (Eastleigh) (LD)
Mr. Speaker: Order. No fewer than 23 Members are seeking to catch my eye. Naturally, I am keen to accommodate as many as a reasonable allocation of time will allow, but I appeal to each right hon. and hon. Member to ask a single, short supplementary question and, of course, to the Home Secretary to provide an economical reply.
Liz Blackman (Erewash) (Lab)
Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) (Lab)
Mrs. Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
Mr. John Randall (Uxbridge) (Con
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh, North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
Sir Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife) (LD)
Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab)
Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Mr. Tom Watson (West Bromwich, East) (Lab)
David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Mr. Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Mrs. Iris Robinson (Strangford) (DUP)
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) (Lab)
John Mason (Glasgow, East) (SNP)
Mr. Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Good luck Gary!
I am an American living in Japan, who grew up in England, and I want to tell you 100%, the US authorities are being cowardly and wicked in insisting you be extradited to the US. First of all, in principle, anyone hacking into government computers is doing them a favor. They are exposing security weaknesses that are their responsibility, not yours.
Secondly, the UK Home Secretary is an Ass! He should be looking after your rights as a UK citizen, not bending to the will of an out of control militaristic and morally bankrupt wicked Imperial state like 21st century America. Shame on you Mr. Home Secretary! You are betraying Britain!
Gary, I wish you and your supporters all the luck in the world, and I will be praying for their attempts to extradite you to fail.
Why is it that when the government wants to build a multitude of new power plants in the UK (note that these will be a very long way from London), they just change the law to allow them to build them and to do it quickly. When it comes to a case of extreme injustice and the effective torture and murder of a British citizen by the US, Alan Johnson states that "my job is to uphold the law". Why does nobody care enough to CHANGE this legislation? Because they're under too much pressure from the American government, whose backside they lick. This whole affair is a disgrace to the American government and to Barack Obama, but mostly it's a disgrace to our own spineless prime minister and his government, and to our disgustingly immoral justicial system. A judicial system which has long been much less about justice and much more about paperwork and greedy, selfish individuals' own interests.
John Leyden reports in The Register:
It seems that every country in the world will defend its own citizens with the glaring exception of Great Britain.
How different things were in 1850 when David Pacifico, a Portuguese Jew born in Gibraltar and therefore technically a British citizen, had his home in Athens vandalised by an antisemitic mob.
Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, did no less than send a gunboat to Piraeus to seize Greek ships and property equal to the value of Pacifico's claims.
Meanwhile the current and far less inspiring Foreign Secretary Alan Johnston will no doubt cravenly kowtow to American demands for Gary's extradition via a totally corrupt, one-sided “treaty”.
Just remember it is Gary McKinnon today. It could be you or me next week.
Protest - Tuesday 15 December 12 - 2pm outside the Home Office - WE NEED YOU! please try your hardest to attend, spread the word, do what you can - THANK YOU XXX
If you have any ideas, suggestions etc please email me or post on this page :)
One going out to all the gary lovers out there
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6fYMzKvXxg
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/dec/03/human-rights-cat-viciousness-mckinnon
My younger children & I are currently live in the US. As UK citizens we can easily see the differences in cultures. I find the attitude here to any divergence from the rules, rather startling, & the lack of compassion, under certain circumstces, sometimes quite frightening. I wonder whether Alan Johnson can really comprehend, never having lived in US, just how different the US law's attitude is likely to be in comparison to the, generally more compassionate, UK judicial system.
Shame on our governent for not standing by our citizens.
I have been following this case for some time, written to my MP, who has written back in support of you and have been shocked at the way this is going. I really didnt believe it would come to this. I honestly thought someone with a bit of commonsense an ounce of decency and a modicum of courage would intervene and stop this. I never realised to what an extent we are in the USA´s pocket and just how spineless our government could be. I wish there was something I could do but apparently the Government are more worried about offending the US, than the majority (almost all) of the British population. It is a shame you cant hide away until after the general election. Labour would be out, conservatives would be in and you may get a better chance for fairness and justice.
James Heath
Inequitable extradition claims, allegations of human rights abuse, disability; my God, when will people simply stand before their committed crimes without every appeal attempt they can grasp? Rife with Anti-American nationalists, sensationalists, and yellow journalism, I still don't understand how so many can back a man they have never met, oh wait, I have already answered my question. If you want to denounce the legal system(US or UK) or entertain the unfounded nationalistic pride, you will do much better to see this extradition through and then denounce the ruling and system in due course. The shotgun approach, as presented by this site, at hyper linking all things anti-American is only indicative of the unsubstantiated innocence of this man made on behalf of those whom would rather serve justice when it is convenient and popular.
RE: Cole
The issue is not about anti-americanism, it is about the flawed Extradition Treaty that allows a country to extradite an individual without evidence.
This is against fundamental justice and is not convenient nor popular with anyone. And it is certainly a good thing that this case has millions of supporters on Gary's behalf because this same botched treaty if allowed to continue puts you yourself at risk of being extradited on meer suspicion and unsubstanciated claims.
----
Gary - your country has failed you - time to obtain asylum in a different country.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=62567771059&ref=mf
Facebook group growing stronger by the day - this just shows the overwhelming support behind Gary!
@ Cole -
Kindly point to any such "allegations" here which are not demonstrably true.
Perhaps when they are no longer falsely accused of deliberately exaggerated financial damage , without the opportunity to have such allegations dismissed under cross examination of actual evidence ?
Unfounded ? That is quite insulting.
Nonsense ! Since when are hyperlinks to UK court cases or mainstream newspaper reports somehow "all things anti-american" ?
You must be very new to the world wide web if you think that this blog is "anti-american".
Gary McKinnon has not yet been tried in any court, let alone found guilty of anything, so he is innocent until proven guilty, on actual , cross examinable evidence.
Most of our American friends and supporters cherish this as a fundamental human right, so you seem to be some sort of minority extremist.
LOL@Cole.
Baroness Scotland, who pushed through the 2003 treaty, admitted in debate that the treaty was necessarily unequal due to the US constitution.
David Blunkett, who presented the treaty in the US, now admits that the UK got a bad deal. So yes, when the two people instrumental in the treatys acceptance and eventual ratification say that it's inequitable, then i guess it probably is !
It is a human rights abuse to threaten someone with a 70 year sentence when they would have had a two year sentence in their own country.
Yes, the guy has a mental condition, as confirmed by the top people in their field in this country AND America.
When will the 13 CIA agents wanted by Italy stand before their committed crimes ? Their government said there is no way they will ever succumb to that extradition request.
This site is rife with Americans that support Gary and rife with people that are anti US foreign policy, as are many Americans.
As for sensationalism, it is a senmsational when your lawyer is told the prosecution wants to see their client fry.
It is a sensationasl case when a computer hacker is featured in an official army publication called 'A Guide to Combatting Terrorism in the 21st Cenmtury".
It is a sensational case when an ally of this country has brought up the possibility that a citizen of this country could be tried before a military tribunal for logging onto systems with NO PASSWORDS !
Yellow journalism ... yes the press have always been a little bananas in this country.
Unlike you, and some others on this site, i like to deal in facts and not emotions.
I have dealt with your emotional outcry with a response in fact that i know you cannot refute, so perhaps doing research before doing your typing might give you a more solid foundation.
Kindest Regards,
Queen of The Nile.
A Compormise:
Is it not possible for Gary to be tried in America in Garry's absence.?
He could answer the American Court by video link and have his legal team in America.
He would than serve any sentence in the UK but not have to travel to America himself.
David Shamash.
London England I am supposed to have Asperger Syndrome and I am not representing anyone.