In 2022, 18-year-old Kurtaj, along with a 17-year-old male accomplice, who was not named because he was a minor, attacked Nvidia, Grand Theft Auto, Uber. The two hackers face 12 charges including blackmail, fraud and hacking.
Kurtaj, who was fully responsible for half of the charges, was confirmed by a childhood doctor to have complex autism spectrum disorder, a pervasive developmental disorder with psychiatric involvement. Specifically, according to this doctor, Kurtaj is autistic, hyperactive, and cognitively 1% of his peers.
With the doctor’s confirmation, the judge of the seven-week criminal trial in London deemed Kurtaj unfit to stand trial. This means he cannot be found to have “criminal intent”. And with such a situation, this hacker may not be jailed, but will be ordered to receive treatment in the community or sent to a mental care facility.
Earlier this week, a jury held the 18-year-old hacker responsible for all charges.
In the years before the attack, Kurtaj lived with his mother and younger brother in Oxfordshire. Nicholas Hindley, Kurtaj’s childhood doctor, said in a court hearing he was “an exceptionally physically impaired individual”. The doctor’s first contact with Kurtaj was when the special needs children’s school he attended couldn’t control him.
According to Kurtaj’s lawyer, although he has not received a formal education since the age of 14, he was found to have committed a number of security violations, infiltrating and exposing weaknesses in the network security systems of companies. Big company.