Home secretary Theresa May has adjourned the pending judicial review of Nasa hacker Gary McKinnon while she reviews the case, offering his supporters the first glimpse that the government may be about to refuse his extradition to the US.
Breaking reports suggest that May, who was appointed last week as part of the David Cameron administration, is now looking at McKinnon's medical evidence to assess whether he is fit to stand trial in the US.
Former Labour home secretary Alan Johnson is said to have ignored expert medical evidence late last year when he ruled that the 44 year-old Londoner was fit enough to be extradited.
The Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties came out in support of McKinnon's plea to be tried in the UK when in opposition, and his mother Janis Sharp said at the weekend that she is confident that the new government will halt the extradition.
"Everyone's promised it - Nick Clegg, Chris Huhne, David Cameron, Dominic Grieve - they all slated the Labour government for pursuing it and said it has to stop and they promised if they get into power this would happen, so we're very, very happy about that," she told the BBC.
McKinnon admitted hacking into the computer systems of the Pentagon and Nasa in 2001 and 2002, claiming that he was looking for evidence of extraterrestrial life.
He has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, and is reported to have been suicidal in recent months at the prospect of being incarcerated in a maximum security US jail.
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