Home Secretary announces that Gary McKinnon will *not* be extradited to the USA

The announcement on Tuesday 16th October by Theresa May, the Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition government Home Secretary, that Gary McKinnon will not be extradited to the USA. This is a huge relief, and to be honest, a surprise, to some of us who have been campaigning for this for years.

We wish Gary and his family all the best.

Thank you to everyone who has supported this campaign over the years, by lobbying politicians and by airing the issues of cybersecurity, extradition law and the treatment of autistic people, with the mainstream media and online.

The Daily Mail newspaper has been (to many supposedly "liberal" minded people's astonishment) a staunch supporter of the campaign to stop Gary McKinnon being extradited to the USA.

A great day for Gary - and British justice: After a 3-year Mail campaign bitterly opposed by America, British courts and civil servants, Theresa May yesterday courageously decided Asperger's sufferer Gary McKinnon will NOT be extradited for hacking Pentagon computers in pursuit of little green men

Technically, the Director of Public Prosecutions, could continue to flounder in the mire of the Crown Prosecution Service's embarrassment, by reversing his previous arguments that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute Gary in the UK - the root cause of this whole debacle. It would be extraordinary if that were to happen now.

Theresa May has also vaguely promised some "new" forum bar changes to the evil Extradition Act 2003.

As with all politicians' promises, which we have learnt to be extremely cynical of over the course of this campaign, we need to see the full detail of exactly what is proposed. Will this really be something new, or will it be the Commencement of the already existing (but deliberately left dormant for over 6 years in defiance of the the will of Parliament) Extradition Act 2003 section 19B (European Arrest Warrant etc. category 1 countries) and section 87B (which applies to category 2 countries like the USA) ?

Until this mess over forum bar and Extradition is properly reformed, then the Kafkaesque political and judicial bureaucracy will betray other British victims of injustice, such as the student Richard O'Dwyer, who is facing extradition to the USA, for alleged internet activities which are not illegal in the United Kingdom.

Will anyone in Whitehall and Westminster be held accountable over the injust imprisonment without trial and extradition to the USA of, for example Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan ?