Nasa hacker petition presented to Number 10

Sting's wife Trudie Styler and Janis Sharp have presented a petition to Number 10 calling for Nasa hacker Gary McKinnon not to be extradited to the US.

Styler, and Sharp, who is McKinnon's mother, presented the petition to Sarah Brown, the Prime Minister's wife, on Friday. The petition was signed by 4,338 people, and called on the government to provide protection against extradition for people with autism. McKinnon has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a condition on the autism spectrum.

"As a mother myself, I am 100 percent behind Janis's tireless fight to protect her son," said Styler in a statement. "Gary's actions were clearly misguided. However extraditing him seven years after the event and subjecting him to lengthy prison sentence thousands of miles away from his family is an unnecessarily cruel and undignified way to treat anyone, let alone someone with his condition."

Styler and Sting have supported McKinnon for approximately six months. In March they contacted Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer, calling for Gary to be tried in this country. They also sent a hamper to McKinnon and his family, with a note, later in March.

McKinnon enjoys support from a wide range of people, including Jane Asher, Terry Waite, Boris Johnson, The Proclaimers, Dave Gilmour, and Julie Christie. Politicians including Conservative shadow minister for justice David Burrowes also support McKinnon's cause.

McKinnon stands accused of the "biggest military hack of all time" by US prosecutors. McKinnon's legal team maintain that should McKinnon be found guilty by a US court, he runs the risk of being imprisoned for up to sixty years. However, the Law Lords rejected that possibility, and found that he would be likely to be improsoned for 8 to 10 years.

The next stage in McKinnon's seven year legal battle is a high court hearing on 14 July. The appeal judges will consider McKinnon's application for a judicial review to decide whether he could be tried in the UK.