Lauri Love case: US to seek extradition over hacking allegations
Lauri Love case: Vicar father fears son 'could kill himself'
(about 3 hours later)
A vicar's son accused of hacking into US Federal Reserve computers has vowed to fight "barbaric" attempts to extradite him from the UK.
A vicar says his son would be likely to kill himself if he were to be extradited to the US to face cyber-crime charges.
The US wants to prosecute Lauri Love, 31, of Stradishall, for alleged cyber-hacking. Lawyers say if found guilty he could spend up to 99 years in prison.
The US wants to prosecute Lauri Love, 31, of Stradishall, for allegedly stealing details from the FBI, the Missile Defence Agency and Nasa.
Mr Love, who has Asperger syndrome, says he will not go to the US "under any condition whatsoever".
Mr Love, who has Asperger syndrome, says he will not go to the US "under any condition whatsoever".
The two-day extradition is being heard at Westminster Magistrates' Court.
A two-day extradition case is being heard by Westminster magistrates.
LIVE: For more on this and other Suffolk stories
LIVE: For more on this and other Suffolk stories
His case echoes that of Gary McKinnon, another alleged cyber-hacker with Asperger syndrome who was eventually spared extradition after a decade-long battle when the Home Secretary intervened.
Rev Alexander Love, a prison chaplain who works with vulnerable people at risk of suicide, told the court that some people he had counselled saw killing themselves as their only solution to a future they could not see.
Mr Love, who also has depression, said Theresa May should consider if she also had a duty to intervene on his behalf.
He said: "In regard to my son ... Lauri is somebody who strikes me as somebody who will do this. The probability is quite high."
He said: "I would ask her if she feels she has an obligation and a duty of care to UK citizens to shield them from relatively barbaric treatment.
Mr Love 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".
"I have not been accused of any violent offending but am facing potentially the rest of my life in a foreign prison where I have no friends and family. I think this is something to consider and try to avoid.
"In Lauri's case," he said, "we do see it coming, that is the big difference.
"We should assert the sovereignty of our legal system which actually gave birth to US law and we should consider ourselves intelligent and competent and capable enough to have our own legal system and not require the foreign powers step in."
"At times Lauri is in utter despair. At other times he's frustrated with the world. We have become his carers. His ability to grasp the real world is impaired."
Mr Love, who first became interested in computers when he was just seven, said he had not been able to view any of the evidence against him.
He said all he wanted was an opportunity to defend himself in a British court according to British laws and standards.
Mr Love's father Rev Alexander Love, a prison chaplain, said: "We've had a big debate about sovereignty and we have made choices for good or bad. And yet we allow the Americans to extradite our citizens to America but the Americans do not allow their citizens to be extradited here.
"At the heart of it all is his emphatic statement that he will kill himself. I know I am his father and you might say I am biased but I work with people who are vulnerable and I have experience of this after 36 years as a minister and if Lauri says if he is taken to America he will kill himself then I believe him to be stating something he intends to do."
