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A picture
released by Sherborne School in Dorset shows Alan Turing
aged 16 in 1928
(Sherborne School/AFP/File)
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LONDON —
Leading scientists including Stephen Hawking urged Britain on Friday to pardon
World War II code-breaker Alan Turing, who committed suicide after he was
convicted of the then crime of homosexuality.
Often
hailed as a father of modern computing whose code-cracking is credited with
shortening World War II, Turing took his own life in 1954, two years after he
was sentenced to chemical castration for the "gross indecency" of
homosexuality.
"Successive
governments seem incapable of forgiving his conviction for the then crime of
being a homosexual, which led to his suicide," the scientists wrote in a
letter published in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
"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."
Hawking and
ten other scientists, including Royal Society president Paul Nurse, described
Turing as "one of the most brilliant mathematicians of the modern
era".
"It is
time his reputation was unblemished," they said.
Turing died
aged 41 after poisoning himself with cyanide.
In his
short life, he lay the theoretical foundation for the modern-day computer and
unravelled Nazi codes, which some historians argue saved millions of lives by
cutting the war short.
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A World War
II Enigma decoding machine pictured at Bletchley Park,
central England, in 2004
(AFP/File, Martin Hayhow)
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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.
He also
published pioneering work on early computers.
In 2009,
Britain's then prime minister Gordon Brown issued a posthumous apology to the
code-breaker, 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.
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