The European Court of Human Rights has denied U.K. hacker Gary McKinnon's appeal against demands for his extradition to the U.S.

Gary McKinnon, who is 42 years old, appealed against his extradition under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The hacker had claimed that the conditions of detention he would face if convicted in the U.S. would breach a European prohibition on inhumane or degrading treatment.

However, the European Court refused to delay his extradition and his lawyer said that he would be sent in the U.S within the next two weeks.

Gary McKinnon alleges he is an unemployed nerd whose hacking of U.S. government computers was an almost innocent act, motivated in part by his obsession with UFOs.

His computer crimes took place between 2001 and 2002 and the U.K. National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), arrested him in 2002 under the Computer Misuse Act. However, he wasn’t initially charged.

U.S. authorities indicted McKinnon later that year on charges of hacking NASA, Department of Defense, Air Force, Army and Navy computers in violation of US computer laws, and they were granted an extradition request in 2005, which was stalled by an appeal.

The loony hacker does not dismiss the accusations but instead claims he wanted to uncover secret stuff that the government is allegedly hiding from the public, which would supposedly greatly benefit mankind. This hidden knowledge includes UFO stuff, Gary McKinnon says. It seems that the only thing he uncovered was the anger of U.S. authorities, which are not happy of his intrusions, which caused damage and lost money and functionality.

For example, he is accused of crashing the U.S. Army's network of 2,000 computers for 24 hours, significantly disrupting government functions. Gary McKinnon's attacks also allegedly rendered inoperable 300 computers at a U.S. Navy weapons station immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The network was effectively shut down for an entire week, and for another three weeks afterward, the computers at NWSE were only able to send and receive internal e-mail. The problems lasted for a month, after which NWS Earle regained ability to automatically route Naval message traffic and access the Internet, prosecutors allege.

He also managed to anger U.S. authorities with a message he left on a hacked computer, which said that U.S. foreign policy is akin to government sponsored terrorism these days. Gary McKinnon should have known that the U.S. always takes everything personally, for some obscure reasons.

His lawyers noted that Gary McKinnon has never visited the U.S., and the offenses of which McKinnon is accused were committed in the U.K.

"We maintain that any prosecution of our client ought therefore to be carried out by the appropriate British authorities," the defense team said. "U.K. citizens are at the mercy of the ever-increasing tendency of overseas prosecutors to extend their jurisdiction to crimes allegedly committed in this country."

According to the Associated Press Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney declined comment until McKinnon is in the United States.

"The department doesn't comment on matters of extradition unless and until an individual is extradited and on U.S. soil," Sweeney said in a statement.