originally published: 8th January 2010
all credits: Times24

The mother of an autistic man wanted in America on computer hacking charges has labelled Gordon Brown a hypocrite after he tried to halt the execution of a Brit convicted of drug smuggling in China.

Janis Sharp, from Brookmans Park, hit out after the PM pleaded with the Chinese authorities to spare Akmal Shaikh, the Londoner put to death on December 29 despite concerns he was mentally ill. She applauded the premier’s intervention, but said it contrasted sharply with the Government’s stance over her son Gary McKinnon.

Asperger’s sufferer Gary faces up to 60 years in a US jail if he is extradited and convicted of computer hacking. But Janis believes her son would be at risk of committing suicide should he be put on a plane to America.

She said: “Gordon Brown wrung his hands over the execution of a mentally ill British drugs carrier in China.

“Yet he and his Government remain complicit in the US authorities’ hounding of my vulnerable son, despite knowing that, for Gary, extradition amounts to nothing less than a death sentence, given his growing mental instability.”

She added: “Why can’t the UK just ask our supposedly strongest ally, President Obama, to show clemency towards Gary by cancelling the extradition request and allowing a UK prosecution?”

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