BBC News - Alan Turing: Scientists call for pardon for codebreaker - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20722581
'Some of Britain's leading scientists have called on the government to grant a posthumous pardon to Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing.
Turing was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 after acknowledging a sexual relationship with a man.
Professor Stephen Hawking, Astronomer Royal Lord Rees and the Royal Society's Sir Paul Nurse are among 11 signatories to a letter in the Daily Telegraph.
They urge David Cameron to "formally forgive this British hero".
The scientists said: "We write in support of a posthumous pardon for Alan Turing, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of the modern era.
"He led the team of Enigma codebreakers at Bletchley Park, which most historians agree shortened the Second World War.
"Yet successive governments seem incapable of forgiving his conviction for the then crime of being a homosexual, which led to his suicide, aged 41."'
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