Love’s New York-based attorney, Tor Ekeland, said the presidential election result was likely to impact badly on Love.
His comments came as Trump appointed well-known “hardliners” to head the CIA and the US Department of Justice.
“I think you are going to potentially be able to see a very vindictive Department of Justice, one that is perhaps less interested in cutting plea deals,” said Ekeland.
Love faces charges of hacking into US institutions, including Nasa, an FBI computer forensics laboratory and the Federal Reserve Bank, in a string of security attacks between 2012 and 2013. His conviction could attract a prison sentence of 99 yearLove’s extradition was approved by UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd on 14 November, despite the court’s acknowledgement that Love was at high risk of suicide.
Some 114 MPs from all political parties have written to outgoing US president Barack Obama asking him to drop the extradition request against Love, who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and depression, on humanitarian grounds before Obama leaves office in January 2017.
It emerged in court documents presented in the case that nearly 30 people who had been accused of hacking into US computer systems had been successfully tried in the UK.Ekeland (pictured above with Love) described Trump as someone who “seems to be a very vindictive individual who lacks empathy and compassion”.
Love would face disproportionate punishment in US courts under a Trump presidency, he said.
“I have first-hand experience of these kinds of case in the US and I think the punishments that are meted out and the conditions that are meted out are very harsh and grossly disproportionate to the alleged crime,” he told Computer Weekly.
Trump has appointed ‘hardliners'
Trump has surrounded himself with “right-wing hardliners”, including outspoken critics of human rights, in his first few days as president-elect.
They include Jeff Sessions, the right-wing senator from Alabama who has clashed with the American Civil Liberties Union on human rights issues, who will take over as Attorney General.
And Congressman Mike Pompeo, who has spoken in favour of the harsh treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and has supported the extension of bulk surveillance by the US following the Snowden revelations, as the new head of the CIA.
Trump has also had talks with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani – “a very strict law and order man”, said Eckland – as a potential Secretary of State.
“I think you’re going to see prosecutions and I think you’re going to see them seek the maximum penalties they can get and, in a case like Lauri’s, that is fairly significant,” he said. “That can mean he spends the rest of his life in jail.”
Hopes rest with the appeal court
David Burrowes, MP for Enfield Southgate, who led the parliamentary campaign, said Love’s best hope was now the Court of Appeal.
“Lauri Love’s life now rests with the High Court, which we hope will do what Theresa May did for Gary McKinnon and what Parliament has since intended, which is recognise it is not right to extradite him,” said Burrowes. “Failing that, we will have to ask Donald Trump to step in.”
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