LONDON -- A judge at the Bow Street Magistrates' Court last week approved a U.S. government request to extradite an unemployed systems administrator who allegedly caused US$700,000 in damage by hacking into U.S. military and government computers.

U.S. prosecutors allege that Gary McKinnon, a 40-year-old London resident, significantly disrupted systems from February 2001 to March 2002, causing damage that jeopardized the operations of U.S. military networks.

Among other charges, prosecutors claim that McKinnon deleted files from computers at Naval Weapons Station Earle , a U.S. Navy base in New Jersey. That caused the shutdown of about 300 systems in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to U.S. authorities.

McKinnon, who said he would appeal the extradition order, has acknowledged that he accessed systems owned by the Navy, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA. But he maintains that he was researching UFOs and that he didn't damage any of the computers.

McKinnon's attorneys had feared that he could be classified as an enemy combatant by the U.S. government and held indefinitely. But the U.S. said it plans to try McKinnon as a conventional defendant in U.S. District Court in Virginia.