Police arrested Joseph James O’Connor in July 2021 in Spain.

Madrid:

A Spanish court docket accepted Friday the extradition to america of a British man suspected of hacking the Twitter accounts of main public figures together with presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

Police arrested Joseph James O’Connor in July 2021 within the southern metropolis of Estepona which is house to a lot of Britons.

He faces a number of expenses in reference to the July 2020 hack of over 130 Twitter accounts, together with these of then-Democratic presidential candidate Biden.

The accounts of former President Barack Obama, Microsoft co-founder Invoice Gates and Tesla boss Elon Musk, who now owns Twitter, have been additionally hit.

US officers allege O’Connor hijacked the celeb accounts after which requested followers of them to ship bitcoin to an account, promising to double their cash.

Spain’s Nationwide Courtroom mentioned on Friday that he’s additionally suspected of hacking the Snapchat account of a unnamed public determine after which threatening to publish bare photos of him until he was financially compensated.

It mentioned the “crucial situations” have been met for Spain to comply with a US extradition request for the 23-year-old, who can be identified by the alias “Plugwalk Joe”.

Spain’s cupboard nonetheless should approve it though often complies with the court docket’s choices.

O’Connor can even nonetheless enchantment the extradition. He faces expenses associated to unauthorised pc entry, extortion and cyberstalking.

His defence workforce had argued that he needs to be tried in Spain, the situation of the pc servers which have been allegedly used within the hacking.

A Florida teenager accused of masterminding the assault was sentenced by a US court docket in 2021 to a few years in juvenile jail in a plea settlement.

Graham Ivan Clark was simply 17 when he was charged and his case was transferred to a Florida state court docket due to his juvenile standing.

(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)