Scientists seek pardon for war hero

Turing was a computing pioneer London – Arabstoday with agencies Britain’s leading scientists have urged the government to grant a posthumous pardon to World War II code-breaker Alan Turing. Turing committed suicide following his conviction of gross indecency, after he admitted being involved in a homosexual relationship. Eleven scientists, including Stephen Hawkins, have sent a signed letter to the Daily Telegraph to ask David Cameron to formally “forgive this British hero.” Turing, now widely recognised as a computing pioneer, was sentenced to chemical castration in 1952. He took his own life two years later, at the age of 41. He poisoned himself with cyanide. The scientists hailed Alan Turing as “one of the most brilliant mathematicians of the modern era. The letter read: "Successive governments seem incapable of forgiving his conviction for the then crime of being a homosexual, which led to his suicide. "We urge the Prime Minister formally to forgive this British hero, to whom we owe so much as a nation, and whose pioneering contribution to computer sciences remains relevant even today." "It is time his reputation was unblemished," they said. In his short life, he paved the way for the modern-day computer. He managed to crack Nazi codes, which – arguably -- saved millions of lives by cutting the war short. He is credited with breaking the "Enigma" code used to encrypt communications between German U-boats in the North Atlantic ocean, but he was virtually unknown to the public at the time of his death as his work was kept secret until 1974. In 2009, Gordon Brown issued an official apology to Alan Turing, saying he had been treated “terribly”. Homosexuality was decriminalised in Britain in 1967. The government rejected a call to pardon Turing in February after it was presented with an online petition of more than 23,000 signatures. Junior justice minister Tom McNally said at the time that it would be "inappropriate" to pardon him as he was "properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence". The office of Prime Minister David Cameron said it was considering its response to the scientists' letter.