What they are saying as McKinnon loses appeal

Campaigners are furious after Gary McKinnon lost his latest legal challenge against his extradition to the United States to stand trial for hacking into Navy and Nasa computers and causing $800,000 worth of damage.

McKinnon, 43, of Wood Green, London, had asked the High Court to overturn the Home Secretary and the Director of Public Prosecution's decision not to try him in the UK – and also to rule on whether his diagnosis as a sufferer of Asperger's Syndrome meant he couldn’t be extradited to the US.

However, the High Court said that extradition was "a lawful and proportionate response to his offending". McKinnon now hopes to take his case to the newly formed Supreme Court in a final bid to avoid extradition to America. Prosecutors there have called the alleged crime "the biggest military computer hack of all time" and if found guilty, McKinnon faces up to 70 years in jail.

McKinnon, whose lawyers argued he is "eccentric" and should be tried in the UK to protect him from a deterioration in his mental health which could lead to suicide, has always maintained his only objective in hacking into government computers was to obtain classified documents he believed would prove the existence of UFOs.

Speaking outside the High Court his mother, Janis Sharp, said her son had been "naive enough to admit to computer misuse without having a lawyer and without one being present." She criticised the law which allowed the US to demand extradition of British subjects.

She is not the only one. Campaigners have long complained against the current law, established in 2003 following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, for its lop-sidedness.

While British prosecutors have to prove 'probable cause' in order to effect an extradition from the US to the UK, Americans have only to prove 'reasonable suspicion'. Since 2004, 56 Britons have been sent to the US for trial, while only 26 have been sent the other way.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING:

Nico Haynes, the Times: "Computer hacker Gary McKinnon will appeal to the newly formed Supreme Court after he today lost his latest High Court bid to avoid extradition to America. Justice Stanley Burnton and Mr Justice Wilkie dismissed his claim for judicial review despite lawyers arguing that he would face 'disastrous consequences' if he were to stand trial in the US for hacking into military networks from his flat in North London."

McKinnon's mother Janis Sharp, appealing to Barack Obama: "Stand by us and make this world a better place, a more compassionate place. Obama wouldn't have this. He doesn't want the first guy extradited for computer misuse to be a guy with Asperger's, a UFO guy. He wouldn't want this. I'm just praying, please hear us, Obama, because I know you would do the right thing. I know you would have the strength to stand up and not have this."

Former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell in the Daily Mail: "This is a profoundly disappointing decision. The people who should hang their heads in shame are the members of the Government who negotiated an extradition treaty with the United States which places British citizens in a much weaker position than their American counterparts. If this was happening in America there would be a public outcry and Congress would be moving might and main to prevent it."

Gary McKinnon, defending himself on BBC Radio 5's Victoria Derbyshire show: "I'm not blind to criminality but I was on a moral crusade at the time. There was good evidence to show that certain secretive parts of the American government intelligence agencies did have access to crashed extra terrestrial technology which could... save us as a form of free, clean, pollution-free energy. I thought if someone was holding on to that, that was actually unconstitutional under American law."

Andrew MacKinlay, Labour MP for Thurrock, who has vowed to quit the Commons at the next election in protest at the recent Commons vote supporting McKinnon's extradition: "I believe it's the role of backbenchers to probe and criticise. In instances like the McKinnon case, which relate to people's rights and liberties as well as commonsense, you should just spurn the diktats and the Whips. I was really frustrated by the vote. Many of my colleagues had expressed their sympathy for Gary McKinnon. But when the crunch came, they just went tribal and followed the diktats of the party."

Mayor of London Boris Johnson: "There are a number of serious flaws in the Extradition Act in its current form. In the case of Gary McKinnon it is brutal, mad and wrong to consider sending him to the US. Gary's case is just one high-profile case we are aware of, but a number of other UK citizens are also in similar positions and are currently awaiting their fate."

An anonymous military officer at the US Pentagon, interviewed by the Sunday Telegraph: "US policy is to fight these attacks as strongly as possible. As a result of Mr McKinnon's actions, we suffered serious damage and lost a lot of time and money. This was not some harmless incident. He did very serious and deliberate damage to military and Nasa computers and left silly and anti-American messages. All the evidence was that someone was staging a very serious attack on US systems."