Kurtaj, one of two hackers who attacked Nvidia, Grand Theft Auto, and Uber, was found unfit to stand trial by a judge for having a complex, mentally related autism spectrum disorder. The childhood doctor confirmed that Kurtaj was autistic, hyperactive, and cognitively 1% of his peers.
Now 18, Kurtaj was at the center of a seven-week criminal trial in London, along with a 17-year-old male co-conspirator, who cannot be named because he was a minor, as two hackers. Nvidia, Grand Theft Auto, Uber in 2022. The two face 12 charges including extortion, fraud, and cyberattack according to Bloomberg.
spectrum disorder, a developmental Kurtaj, who is fully responsible for half of the charges, was found unfit to stand trial before the trial began because he has complex autism disorder spillover related to mental health.
That means he can’t be found with “criminal intent” and can be ordered to be treated in the community or sent to a mental health facility instead of prison. Earlier this week, the jury declared him responsible for all charges.
The lawyers argued that the evidence linking the two to the incident was not strong enough and there was no way to know Kurtaj was responsible for the cyberattack.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Niamh Matthews-Murphy, Kurtaj’s attorney, said that despite the jury’s (possibly appealable) decision, they hope the case will shed light on how individuals can be helped. vulnerable individuals with severe neurodevelopmental disorders communicate with the police and the justice system.
In the years before the incident, Kurtaj lived at home in Oxfordshire with his mother and younger brother. During the trial, Kurtaj’s childhood doctor, Nicholas Hindley, described him as “an exceptionally physically impaired individual”. The doctor’s first contact with Kurtaj came after the special needs children’s school he attended failed to control him.
According to attorney Matthews-Murphy, although he had not received a formal education since the age of 14, he was still found to have committed a number of security breaches, infiltrating and exposing weaknesses in the security system. network of the largest global companies. Companies have spent millions of dollars to make their systems impenetrable.