Computer hacker Gary McKinnon must stand trial in the United States, the Home Secretary has said.

Alan Johnson dashed any last hopes that Mr McKinnon, from Wood Green in North London, would be spared extradition.

The High Court last week threw out an appeal against the decision to allow the 43-year-old man, who has Asperger’s Syndrom, to be tried in America.

Following the hearing, his lawyers insisted they would continue to fight extradition, and would ask Mr Johnson to intervene.

But writing in The Sunday Times, the Home Secretary said there was nothing he could do.

He said: “The Home Secretary can prevent extradition only in very specific circumstances: where the person in question could be sentenced to death if convicted; where there is a chance that a person will be tried for crimes committed before that extradition that were not specified in the request; or where the person has previously been extradited to the UK from another country, or transferred here by the International Criminal Court and no consent has been given to them being extradited elsewhere.

“If none of these circumstances apply - which is true of McKinnon’s case - then it’s black and white.

“It would be breaking the law for a home secretary not to order extradition.”

But the Government will push for Mr McKinnon to serve any prison sentence in the UK if he is convicted, Ministers have said.

Speaking to the BBC, Harriet Harman, the Leader of the Commons and Labour’s Deputy Leader, said: “If he is found guilty then obviously straight away we will seek to him to serve any prison sentence, if he is sentenced to prison, back in this country.”

Mr McKinnon has admitted accessing 97 US government computers belonging to organisations such as the US Navy and Nasa.

But he has denied his actions were malicious, saying he was looking for evidence of UFOs, anti-gravity technology and “free energy”.

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