Theresa May puts hold on McKinnon extradition

Friends and family of Gary McKinnon are feeling better about his chances of avoiding extradition to the United States after the new Home Secretary, Theresa May, indicated she would look again into whether he was mentally fit to stand trial there.

McKinnon, the Asperger's sufferer who hacked into US military computers looking for evidence of "little green men", faces 60 years imprisonment if he is sent to the US. Psychiatrists have warned that he is likely to kill himself.

After the last Labour Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, said in November that he saw no reason to block McKinnon's extradition on medical grounds, it is now understood that May will reconsider the medical case for his being tried in Britain rather than the US.

The Daily Mail, which has campaigned for McKinnon, believes the pressure from a series of celebrities, autism charities and human rights lawyers like Geoffrey Robertson has finally paid off. Another factor is the support for McKinnon from David Cameron and Nick Clegg when they were in opposition: Clegg, in particular, was "scathing about Labour's decision to hang Gary out to dry", as the Mail puts it.

If May decides that McKinnon, 44, cannot be extradited, he would still have to be tried in Britain. Although his defenders describe him as a computer geek who displays the obsessive behaviour patterns of an Asperger's syndrome victim, the US sees him as a cyber-terrorist who did $700,000 worth of damage to Nasa and Pentagon computers.

McKinnon's mother, Janis Sharp, said before May froze the judicial review: "Obviously, the Home Secretary reconsidering the case would be good news but we will only be happy if we are told it is all over." ·