What they said about: Gary McKinnon

David Bermingham of the Times wrote: “It would be churlish not to congratulate the Home Secretary for a job well done…The only naysayer was the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, who seemed to take it as a personal affront that this vulnerable man was not carted off in irons to the United States.”

Scott Lemieux, professor of political science at the College of Saint Rose, Albany: “McKinnon would have faced up to 60 years in prison if convicted, and it would never be wise to assume that the American criminal justice system won’t issue a disproportionately harsh sentence.”

David Allen Green of the New Statesman: “The ‘Free Gary’ campaign has succeeded in keeping the case going in England until they could get the official decision they sought. This is an incredible achievement. The fact that the legal realities of the case were often ignored along the way by the mainstream media is now perhaps only of academic importance.”

Jerome Taylor of the Independent: “Talha Ahsan from Tooting was bundled on to a private charter flight to the US despite the fact that he too has an Aspergers diagnosis and is considered a suicide risk. So what’s the difference? Well Talha is a brown-skinned Muslim accused of running a pro-jihadi website whilst Gary McKinnon is a white, middle-class,  non-religious hacker.”