Lauri Love verdict: British hacker who breached US defence systems to be extradited despite Asperger’s

‘This is not right, that my son can be taken away,’ says Love’s father. ‘It is not fair or just that a boy who has got mental health issues can be taken away from his family merely to satisfy the desire of the Americans to exact what I feel is vengeance on him’

Lauri Love wipes away tears while speaking to the media after Friday’s ruling (AP)

A hacker who allegedly infiltrated the computer systems of the FBI, the American Missile Defence Agency and Nasa is to be extradited to the US, where he might face up to 99 years in jail if convicted – despite a British court hearing he has Asperger’s and may kill himself in prison.

Lauri Love, a prison chaplain’s son from Suffolk, has had indictments issued against him in three different US states.

Arrested at his parents’ home in the village of Stradishall, he faces accusations he repeatedly hacked US government systems, supposedly joked about “owning lots of Nasa sites” and allegedly accessed the personal information of 104,000 US Energy Department employees.

His lawyers have told reporters that Love, 31, who lives with his parents, could spend up to 99 years in a US jail if found guilty.

The computer science graduate’s father Rev Alexander Love, who himself works with vulnerable prisoners at risk of suicide, told Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London he feared his son might take his own life.

Ten days ago, Mr Love himself told a BBC interviewer: “If I went into a US prison, I don’t think I’d leave again.”

But, in a case with strong echoes of fellow hacker and Asperger’s sufferer Gary McKinnon’s ten-year fight against extradition, District Judge Nina Tempia told Westminster Magistrates’ Court: “I am going to extradite Mr Love.”

The McKinnon case had ended in 2012 when Theresa May, the then Home Secretary, blocked Mr McKinnon’s extradition, saying he was a suicide risk. Love’s case will now be sent to the Home Secretary for formal confirmation of his extradition. It is understood that due to recent rule changes, the Home Secretary only has very limited powers to stop the extradition.

Love is also expected to launch a High Court appeal against the decision to extradite him.

He was granted bail on condition that he reports regularly to a police station and that his passport remains surrendered.

Love sat impassively in the dock as the judge announced her decision. He mother, however, put her head in her hands as his father tried to comfort her.

The decision was also greeted with an audible gasp from the public gallery.

A three-day extradition hearing in June had heard Rev Love plead with the court on his son’s behalf. The prison chaplain said the “bitter experience” of leading funerals for people who had killed themselves led to the regret that everyone has, “that they didn't see it coming”.

“In Lauri’s case,” said Rev Love, “we do see it coming. That is the big difference.

“In regard to my son ... Lauri is somebody who strikes me as somebody who will do this. The probability is quite high. At times Lauri is in utter despair.”

Rev Love was backed by psychologist Prof Simon Baron Cohen, who told the court: “About two thirds of people with Asperger’s have suicidal thoughts. The overwhelming priority is to keep him alive.”

But in her written judgement, Judge Tempia said: "It is in the interests of justice for the case to be tried in the United States. The offences for which Mr Love is sought are serious.

“There is a strong public interest that the United Kingdom should honour its extradition treaty obligations.”

The judge accepted that “there will be a high risk he will commit suicide if extradited,” but she insisted: “A high threshold has to be reached to satisfy the court that Mr Love’s mental condition is such that it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite him.

“The key issue then is what measures are in place to prevent any attempt at suicide being successful. I have found these safeguards are in place to ensure Mr Love does not commit suicide in transit.

“On arrival in the United States I have also found there are arrangements in place to prevent suicide.”

Rejecting suggestions that American sentencing policy would be disproportionate, she said: “Certainly the sentencing regime is harsher in the United States than in the United Kingdom [but] factors can be taken into consideration at sentencing. The mental health of the defendant may be relevant in this.

“I do not agree [that] Mr Love faces a real risk of suicide and inhuman and disproportionate punishment.”

The US authorities have accused Love of substantially impairing the functioning of dozens of computer servers, causing “millions of dollars in damage” to government agencies, and of planning to use social media to publicise his work.

One US indictment claimed he sent a message to friends saying he would like to announce one of his hacks: “So it rolls along the morning news in US and gets Europe for the afternoon and evening.”

He was also accused of messaging associates: “LoL Nasa. Ahaha, we owning lots of Nasa sites … I think we can do some hilarious stuff with it.”

Love’s supporters, however, have always insisted his alleged hacking was not for personal gain and should be considered in the context of “online activisim”.

Before his arrest in October 2013, Mr Love had been an activist in the anti-austerity Occupy movement, becoming heavily involved in the seven-month Hetherington House occupation of 2011 at the University of Glasgow, where he was studying Computer Science and Physics.

Among the allegations against him is that he participated in the Anonymous-led “Operation Last Resort” which protested against the US authorities’ alleged mistreatment of the coder Aaron Swartz, who killed himself in 2013 while facing prison under computer misuse charges.

Swartz’s family blamed his death on “a criminal justice system rife with intimidation” that overreacted to “an alleged crime that had no victims”.

Since he was arrested when the National Crime Agency raided his parents’ home and confiscated computer equipment, Love has stressed how he wants to put his hacking skills to good use.

He is thought to have launched a cyber-security consultancy start-up, and in May, in an article for Freud’s Cyber Security Journal that was reproduced in The Independent, he wrote: “I am a hacker. I like technology and I would like to use it to make the world a better place.”

Suggesting that “kids will always play pranks”, he added: “Most of what might be considered ‘illegal hacking’ is conducted without any criminal motive, any attempt to cheat or make malicious gain, but rather, it’s the natural human desire and drive to understand the world in which we find ourselves.”

Arguing the need for more constructive approaches “that could help bring many of our brightest and best kids back into society”, he wrote: “The first thing is for people in the Government to realise that you can’t prosecute your way out of this problem.

“Just like with the drugs problem, people thought if you arrest enough people then they would stop using drugs, and that didn’t work – although it has taken about 60 years for people to start realising this.

“Locking people up is not going to help them.”

Emphasising his fears for his son in a BBC interview last month, Rev Love said: “My son has Asperger’s and depression. He also suffers from very bad eczema and asthma, which have psychological triggers and, at the very heart of it all, is his emphatic statement that he will kill himself.

“He needs the support of his family. He chooses to live at home because it’s the only place he feels safe. If the Americans have their way, a whole ocean will be put between us and him.

“When Lauri says he will kill himself if he is taken to America, I believe he is stating something he intends to do.”

Love’s supporters fear that he will not be granted bail in the US and will spend his time awaiting trial in an American jail.

Outside court, Love stressed that his battle against extradition was not yet over because he would be appealing to the High Court.

“It’s not the end of the road,” he said. “I would like to thank the judge for giving us an opportunity to win at a higher court and set a stronger precedent. It’s just unfortunate for me and my family that we have to go through another six months of legal stuff.

“I really worry for the toll it is taking on my health and my family’s health.”

In an impassioned speech on the courtroom steps, his father said: “I have been alive a long time, but all my life I have believed in that to be born in these islands was to win the lottery of life. That in our society, there was decency and fairness, that our laws were just.

“I don’t criticise the judge. She has sought to pass judgement on a law that is flawed.

“This is not right, that my son can be taken away. It is not fair or just that a boy who has got mental health issues can be taken away from his family merely to satisfy the desire of the Americans to exact what I feel is vengeance on him.”

Moments later, as his son began speaking to reporters, Rev Love broke down sobbing, repeating: “I can't believe it, I can't believe it.”