Nasa hacker looks to Lords for appeal hope

Gary McKinnon, the Briton who has admitted hacking into Nasa's computer systems, may be able to appeal to the House of Lords against his extradition to the US.

According to a firm of solicitors acting on behalf McKinnon, the law lords will consider whether to grant leave to appeal to the House of Lords.

Jeff Anderson, assistant to McKinnon's solicitor, said: "There's been a bit of ambiguity about what they agreed to but yesterday the House of Lords let us know they are considering whether to take the case. They are still considering the case, and haven't concretely agreed to a hearing. They have confirmed a committee hearing to discuss whether they will hear the case."

McKinnon lost his Court of Appeal case in April but his lawyers said at the time that the judges in the appeal court "definitely left the door open" for a further appeal to the law lords.

At the time, the Court of Appeal took a dim view of alleged coercion applied to McKinnon by US prosecutors, saying it "viewed with a degree of distaste the way in which the American authorities are alleged to have approached the plea bargain negotiations" with McKinnon.

According to McKinnon and his counsel, during the plea bargaining negotiations, a US member of the prosecution team "threatened" McKinnon that if he did not agree to the bargain offered the prosecutors would push for the highest possible penalties and that he would be "turned over to New Jersey authorities to see him fry".

McKinnon's defence further alleged the US said if he did not agree to the deal there would be no chance of him serving his sentence in the UK near his friends and family.

McKinnon learnt this week that the law lords have agreed to listen to arguments by his defence that the US authorities "acted in an oppressive and arbitrary manner" during the plea bargaining, according to Anderson.

McKinnon's hopes of avoiding extradition through proceedings in the UK now almost certainly rest on the outcome of the House of Lords appeal, said Anderson. "This probably is the end of the road in the UK. If things don't go Gary's way in the House of Lords, there's not really another avenue in the UK," he said.

If the Lords appeal fails, the European Court of Human Rights "could be a place to apply", added Anderson.

While he has accepted that he hacked into US government sites, McKinnon has consistently denied causing serious damage, maintaining that he was searching for evidence of UFOs.

According to McKinnon's friends, he was taken ill on 14 February with heart palpitations due to stress. Anderson confirmed McKinnon had been "much better since" although he is still "under huge amounts of stress".

Tom Espiner and Colin Barker write for ZDNet UK