Gary McKinnon should have been extradited – Spectator Blogs

See them there? That’s Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne rallying for Gary McKinnon before the last election. This alone should have been enough to persuade the Daily Mail to rethink its mighty campaign on behalf of Mr McKinnon. Apparently not, however, and so the Home Secretary today passed her responsibilities to Paul Dacre and bravely agreed with the editor of the most powerful newspaper in Britain. Accordingly, Gary McKinnon will not be extradited to the United States.

Technically, Mrs May found that extraditing Mr McKinnon would breach his human rights. Relying on the much-hated (not least by the Daily Mail) Human Rights Act the Home Secretary concluded that the combination of McKinnon’s Aspergers’ and his apparently persuasive threat to kill himself if extradited meant that she had no choice but to thwart American efforts to put him on trial in the United States. Annoying Washington is less dangerous than angering Mr Dacre.