Gary McKinnon is warned off seeing sick father in Scotland: Fears SNP could allow new US bid to extradite hacker

Gary McKinnon has been warned not to visit his sick father in Scotland in case the Nationalist government allows a revived American bid to extradite him.

The Asperger’s sufferer was saved by a Daily Mail campaign in 2012 from previous attempts to take him to the United States for trial on hacking charges.

He is wanted for getting into Pentagon and NASA computers while looking for evidence of aliens.

Now, almost two years on, the 48-year-old wants to visit his sick father Charlie, who is in a Scottish hospital after suffering a stroke.

But the senior lawyers who helped fight his ten-year campaign against extradition have told Gary not to risk going north of the border to the country of his birth.

Karen Todner and Edward Fitzgerald QC said he should only do so if the SNP-run administration declares categorically that it will abide by the refusal to allow extradition by Theresa May.

The Americans were furious at the Home Secretary’s decision in October 2012. She said there was a grave risk that Gary, rated a serious suicide risk by doctors, would take his own life if bundled on a plane.

But there are now fears that the US Attorney General could try again as it applies only in England and Wales. If Gary went to Scotland, he would be covered by its separate legal system.

His mother, Janis Sharp, told the Mail that the Scottish Government had so far failed to give assurances it would turn down any new US request. 

‘I’d have thought it would be very easy for them to do,’ she said. ‘Gary is extremely upset.

‘It seems ludicrous that he can’t safely visit the land he was born in, even to see his father who has been hospitalised after a stroke.’