WW2 Enigma Code Breaker receives apology from British Prime Minister
 

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON ? British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has apologized for the "inhumane" treatment of the Second World War code-breaker Alan Turing.

The mathematician Turing helped crack Nazi Germany's Enigma communications code ? a turning point in the war.

But he was later convicted of gross indecency for having sex with a man and forcibly treated with female hormones to reduce his sex drive. Homosexuality was then illegal in Britain.

Turing committed suicide in 1954 at the age of 41.

Brown's apology, published Friday in The Daily Telegraph newspaper and the prime minister's office Web site, follows an Internet petition that attracted more than 30,000 signatures.

Brown said Turing "truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war."

"The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely," he said.

Brown said Turing was "in effect, tried for being gay."

"We're sorry, you deserved so much better," he said.

Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said the apology was "most welcome and commendable."

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/694167

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