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The US Goverment wants to "crush" a Brit accused of hacking the FBI because they believe he's part of the Anonymous group, his lawyer claims.

But the life of Lauri Love, who has Asperger's syndrome, would be "destroyed" if he is extradited to face trial for cyber crime.

The 31-year-old is fighting extradition over allegations he hacked into the US Federal Reserve, the FBI and other organisations in 2012 and 2013.

Mr Love, from Suffolk, will find out on Friday if a British court will agree to American demands for his extradition.

(Image: Getty)

If convicted he faces a lifetime behind bars, but has previously warned there would be a "high risk" the conditions he would face in a US jail would push him to take his own life.

Tor Ekeland, Mr Love's US lawyer and an expert in hacking cases, said he hoped his client would not be extradited as he fears the American justice system would "destroy his life".

He said: "Roughly 90% of federal criminal trials end in a guilty verdict so the odds are stacked against him.

"The United States Government has enormous resources, but we are doing this case on a shoestring - it's sort of like a David versus Goliath situation.

"Clearly they want to, in my opinion, crush him, because they think he's associated with Anonymous, and anything associated with Anonymous makes them hysterical."

Anonymous is an international group of hackers who wear Guy Fawkes masks at protests.

If extradited, Mr Love would face years in prison before his case even came to court.

He would have separate trials in three jurisdictions - New York, New Jersey and Virginia - over allegations he hacked military and government data and would be charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

(Image: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

But the statute is regarded as "very controversial", Mr Ekeland said, with critics condemning it as "over-broad, extremely vague and ambiguous, and thus invites prosecutorial abuse".

Mr Ekeland said: "He potentially, depending on how those court cases go, could end up spending the rest of his life in prison.

"The penalties are serious, they are really going for him. If he's extradited he is going to be in jail pre-trial. I think it's highly unlikely that he will be released on any kind of bail."

Experts on the American legal system told Mr Love's extradition case at Westminster Magistrates Court in June that he would most likely be placed into immediate segregation for two or three days after his arrival in America to be processed.

Lawyer Joshua Dratel said the threats to kill himself would see him put on suicide watch - kept in solitary confinement that prisoners have described as being akin to "being in a zoo", and where "isolation rather than treatment" is seen as the solution.

He would likely be held in a special housing unit, Mr Ekeland said, with another roommate in a tiny cell and only allowed out one hour a day.

There would be no access to a phone or other amenities and he would receive a "cursory" medical examination.

Mr Ekeland said the UK takes a "better approach" to cyber crime among young hackers, citing the case of Jake Davis and Mustafa Al-Bassam, former members of the LulzSec group who served short sentences after being convicted over various hacking offences.

He said: "They were young kids who went a little bit on the rampage, did far worse in my opinion than what is being alleged in Lauri's case.

"They got caught, they did a little bit of time in the UK, not a lot, and now Mustafa is getting his PhD in computer science, Jake is being a productive member of society.

"Rather than destroying your computer innovators - which I think Lauri to be, I think he is a really brilliant computer whizz - maybe, if these allegations are true, of engaging in pranks against the government as part of basically a protest, rather than destroying him I think the UK should cultivate him, and that's why I think he should not be extradited to the United States because I think it will destroy him."

He added: "A felony criminal trial is enormously stressful on the defendant and I think it would just psychologically devastate him.

"I think the federal prison system in the United States is horrible and barbaric and is in desperate need of reform.

"Dostoyevsky once said that you can judge the state of a civilisation by its prisons, and that gives me little hope for the United States.