Memorandum submitted by Janis Sharp
OVERVIEW
— Thousands of brave men and women have
given their lives to protect our liberties and freedoms. Governments
do not own these liberties; they are entrusted to them. These
hard fought and hard won freedoms are entrusted to our government
for them to protect, uphold and defend; they are not theirs to
give away. Yet when it came to extradition, our Government willingly,
without compulsion, signed away the rights of every British citizen.
Done it seems for no other reason than to ingratiate itself with
a foreign government, in the most blatant act of a betrayal of
its own people by any British Government.
— Our government does not seem to understand
the heightened punishment that extradition represents, compared
with having a trial in the UK.
— The assumption that the US legal system
is equivalent to the UK legal system is patently erroneous. Pre
trial detention; Plea bargains; grossly inflated sentencing; no
legal aid; privatized prisons; stun guns all may sound trivial
but cause profound differences to the way an individual is processed
in the legal system (and I didn't even mention Guantanamo, water
boarding and the death penalty).
WAR ON
TERROR
— We were told by our Government that these
extradition arrangements were an essential tool in the "war
on terror" but to date this treaty is being used for non
violent white collar crimes and non crimes against vulnerable
people such as Ian Norris and of course, my son certainly not
the terrorists we were told this treaty was specifically to be
used against.
NATURAL FORUM
— For the judges to consider natural forum
is essential, yet it is glaringly missing from our new extradition
legislation. Gary was in the UK using a UK computer via a UK connection
and a UK ISP and at no time left the UK. So he should be tried
by the UK courts.
— Gary did not enter a foreign country,
commit a crime and flee that country. He is not a fugitive.
— In a letter decrying the introduction
of the forum amendment Baroness Scotland concludes:
"Not only will this result in
significant embarrassment to the UK diplomatically, but would
give our extradition partners grounds on which to refuse to consider
any and all requests we make to them."
To place the embarrassment of UK diplomats before
the destruction of the rights of all British citizens just sums
up the whole unbelievable attitude that brought us such a betrayal
and what is really shocking is that almost nobody questions it.
It really does beg the question of the people who fight so hard
for this treaty…. who exactly is their loyalty to?
NO EVIDENCE
— No other country in the world will extradite
its own nationals without evidence.
— It is easier to extradite someone from
Britain to America than it is to extradite from one state in America
to another, because the requested state requires contestable evidence
before agreeing to the forcible removal of a person from their
home and family life.
FLAWED "EVIDENCE"
IN GARY'S
CASE
— In a recent disclosure from the CPS,
we had sight of a CPS review of the US allegations against Gary.
Russell Tyner, a CPS lawyer declared most of them hearsay and
inadmissible. In fact the CPS review highlights a series of gaps
in the evidence supplied by the US to the UK, to support McKinnon's
prosecution.
The gaps include:
— No proof identifying each of the computers
hacked.
— No image of each computer.
— No forensic report of each computer,
linking access and file modifications to McKinnon.
— No evidence to prove that accusations
made against McKinnon were not merely hearsay.
— No evidence that McKinnon's activities
caused impairment of US systems.
— No evidence that his activities left
computers vulnerable to intrusion.
When considering "McKinnon's alleged criminality",
the DPP reported a "disparity" between "that which
it would be possible to prove" and the allegations against
him. Why then can it be considered appropriate to extradite him
if there is insufficient evidence to prosecute him in this country?
TREATMENT OF
GARY
— My son has Aspergers Syndrome (High Functioning
Autism) and is a vulnerable adult with a disability often masked
by his abilities. He, along with hundreds of others, was diagnosed
only in adulthood. The condition was only recognized in 1995 by
the W.H.O. when Gary was already 30. Aspergers has many unusual
symptoms such as a monotone voice, an unusual gait, a high IQ,
a lack of empathy, an inability to read faces or body language,
precise language, takes everything literally, an inability to
understand the effect on others of what one says or does, an inability
to tell lies and an inability to understand why someone would
tell lies, telling the truth even to one's own detriment, no racial
distinctions, no awareness of social mores, a heightened sense
of justice and a desire for the truth, repetitive behavior, routines,
a fear of change, passions and fixations which become obsessions
to the exclusion of all else. All of which sets them apart from
their fellows. They are often bullied, shunned and victimized.
Keeping jobs and relationships is difficult. His diagnosis explained
so much in his life, he was always unusual and now we knew why.
— Gary freely admitted to computer misuse
in March 2002 without having a lawyer and without one being present.
He was told by the High Tech crime unit he would face approximately
six months community service.
— Gary believed he was on a moral crusade
as he searched for information on free, clean energy, UFO's and
information on anti gravity. These subjects were Gary's obsession,
which he believed could help the world and which he researched
via virtually unsecured computers. Gary was effectively a whistleblower,
as by leaving cyber notes he alerted the U.S to the fact that
they had no passwords or firewalls on thousands of machines. Gary
also believed that 9/11 was an inside job and left cyber notes
saying he believed it was no accident that there was a stand down
after 9/11. He also left a note saying he would continue disrupting
by leaving cyber notes, until someone at a high level took notice
of what he was saying.
— What he did was wrong, naive, and he
should be prosecuted as a deterrent to him and others like him.
However he should not be sent thousands of miles away from all
that is familiar, his home and family, an ordeal we know he would
not survive, when there are laws to prosecute him in this country.
— When first arrested by the High Tech
Crime Unit they told Gary that they had been monitoring his computer
for months and as he had done nothing to cause any damage he was
looking at six months community service. He didn't ask for legal
representation. He told them he was looking for UFO and "free
energy" evidence and volunteered all that he had done and
why (telling the truth even to his own detriment—as mentioned,
a common trait of individuals with Aspergers).
— The US Government Accountability Office
(GAO) has just released a comprehensive report damning NASA's
IT security. The report states NASA failed to consistently implement
effective controls to prevent, limit and detect unauthorized access
to its networks and systems. NASA networks and systems have been
successfully targeted by cyber attacks 1120 times in the past
two years according to the report.
Eleven hundred times! And that's in just the
past two years!
Robert Gates of the Pentagon said that there
are currently thousands of cyber intrusions into military computers
every month but it seems they are intent on making an example
of Gary, a vulnerable man that is clearly no threat, as confirmed
by Professor of computing Peter Sommer's recent disclosure to
the court.
— The Hi tech Crime Unit and the CPS were
keen to prosecute my son Gary McKinnon for computer misuse, but
were told "from the very top" not to prosecute and to
leave the door open for extradition ... a "backdoor rendition"
it has been called.
— So, Gary was kept in limbo for three
years before the U.S made the extradition request to the U.K courts.
Why? Because they would not have to prove the damage they allege
his actions caused before being granted his extradition. Gary
has always denied the damage but damage is what is needed in order
to make the "crime" extraditable. Despite denials, this
is clearly a ploy the U.S often use in order to apply the treaty
retrospectively. Had the U.S applied to extradite Gary in 2002
Gary could then have contested the allegations of damage.
NO UK PROSECUTION
— The CPS decided it could not prosecute
(based on the largely inadmissible evidence) to the severity that
America required even though it could have prosecuted to a lesser
degree on the sound UK evidence that it did have. In the recent
High Court hearing Lord Justice Stanley Burton, after viewing
the CPS report on the American "Evidence", said to the
Home Office barristers "do you realize how embarrassing
this letter would be to the CPS if Mr McKinnon were to be tried
here?" The Home Office barristers agreed. Also, when
commenting on the judgment of Lord Brown, when the Law Lords attempted
to justify the huge inequality in sentencing between six months
here and 60 years in the US by equating the criminality to one
under the Maritime and Aviation Laws: after seeing CPS disclosure
and evidence from a professor of computing; Lord Burton said in
open court "and pigs might fly"
— The CPS declined to prosecute at all,
thus leaving the way clear for America to extradite with no evidence.
Another perverse decision—why, if there is no real evidence
should you extradite, even when there is evidence albeit lesser
to prosecute here. If there is evidence of a UK crime surely that
crime must have precedence over an extradition with no evidence.
— Being left in limbo was and remains cruelty
in the extreme. Every moment of every day we are in terror and
torment and permanently close to tears. The threat of extradition
is a particularly cruel and unusual punishment for a non-violent
crime.
— Had the US authorities provided contestable
evidence of damage to a UK court in the first place as per the
requirements of the original treaty, this case would have been
decided long ago at minimal expense. Instead it has dragged on
for eight years causing untold stress and hardship on both Gary
and ourselves at enormous expense. I do not see the logic of it.
— Gary's mental health has significantly
deteriorated and he has become suicidal. He is in a permanent
state of fear at the prospect of extradition. It is difficult
to describe to anyone the huge toll it has taken on our lives,
being under such constant high-level stress for almost eight years.
Gary's and our lives are in ruins as the prospect of extradition
is on our minds every second of every day and our lives are on
hold. Gary's medical condition means he cannot travel alone outside
the area around north London without extreme anxiety. He needs
to be surrounded by the familiar, whether it's people or places.
INCONSISTENCY
— The US seems to apply different rules
as they see fit. If a UK citizen on holiday in the US enters the
UK lottery via a US connection, Camelot will not payout winnings
because online gambling is illegal in the US, therefore the crime
is committed at the keyboard location and the US claims jurisdiction.
Why can the same principle not apply to Gary, using his keyboard
at home, when determining the best jurisdiction for a trial?
— What happened to the Lords recent ruling
that it is illegal to confine a person without evidence?
— Baroness Scotland, a strong proponent
of this one-sided treaty, by way of justification, cites examples
of:
"the case of Jakub Tomczak, a Polish national
living in the UK, who brutally assaulted and raped a 48 year old
woman, leaving her for dead lying naked and unconscious in the
street."
"Andrew Aiderrran who absconded having
been accused of raping a 15 year old girl."
Both these cases clearly included purely for
emotive shock-value, have one thing in common—both were
fugitives from justice—unlike Gary, or Ian Norris, or others
subject to this unfair and monstrously damaging treaty.
— Our Government now argues that by amending
the treaty with the US
"it would constitute an act of bad faith
on behalf of the UK-a reneging on important agreements freely
signed up to."
When an arcane legal maneuver (the queen's prerogative)
was employed to sign the US/UK treaty without any debate or discussion,
where the house did not even see the text of the treaty until
three months after it had been signed in secret, by a home secretary
and not the customary foreign secretary, what's more with the
text written in US-style English, clearly demonstrating its authors,
I would totally dispute the "freely signed up to" statement.
— Treaties are commonly renegotiated and
this one should be too.
UNBALANCED
— Baroness Scotland's own words:
"the United States will no longer be required
to supply prima facie evidence to accompany extradition requests
that it makes to the United Kingdom ...
... we shall need to submit sufficient evidence to
establish "probable cause". That is a lower test than
prima facie but a higher threshold than we ask of the United States,
and I make no secret of that."
— Lord West (Parliamentary Under-Secretary—Home
Office) in an attempt to make the inequalities of the US/UK extradition
requirements sound similar he said in the Guardian
"It comes down to a difference between
suspicion and belief, which are broadly comparable,"
— Sir Menzies Campbell CBE QC responded
"He (Lord West) cannot legitimately claim
that these are "broadly comparable". They are not.
"Suspicion" is defined in the Shorter
Oxford English Dictionary as "apprehension of guilt or fault
on slight grounds or without clear evidence", while "belief"
is defined as "acceptance of a proposition, statement, or
fact, as true, on the ground of authority or evidence".
Or, to put it another way, a jury would be entitled
to convict if it believed someone to be guilty but not if all
it had was suspicion."
There are 95 requests for extradition from the
UK compared to 42 requests from the US. Even though that's more
than double, this fails to take account of population differences.
Taking the figures per capita, there is more than 9 times as many
extraditions requested from the UK than there is the other way.
CONCLUSION
As a result of our extradition arrangements
with the US, we could have my son, a UK citizen, imprisoned thousands
of miles from his family and support, having had no trial, having
seen no evidence. And that is not to mention what damage this
would do to a person with an Autistic disorder which seriously
affected his social and communication skills and was already in
deep depression and suicidal. What happened to innocent till proven
guilty? What happened to the right to a trial of one's peers?
What happened to protection of the vulnerable?
A Romanian who hacked into the Pentagon was
sentenced last year to eight months imprisonment in Romania. Romania
does not extradite its own citizens without evidence, so we in
the U.K now have fewer rights than Romanians.
I urge you to please do all that you can to
prevent extradition of Gary taking place and to please do all
in your power to restore the rights that were removed in secret
from British people in a gross, unwarranted and unprecedented
act of betrayal.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to
address you today, I'm looking forward to it. I've written this
letter in the hope that before speaking later today, I can sufficiently
explain the living nightmare we are going through, so that in
the future others do not have to live it too.
November 2009
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