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By Alexander Villafania INQUIRER.NET After over 50 years, mathematical genius Alan Turing could get the justice he deserves after being prosecuted as a homosexual. Two separate online petitions for an apology by the British government were set up by supporters of Alan Turing, the British cryptanalyst who broke the codes of the legendary German Enigma machines during World War II. The first petition was created by computer scientist John Graham-Cumming. In his blog Cumming said he wanted all records about Turing to be released by the British government. He also said he wanted Turing to get a posthumous knighthood. So far, his petition has gathered about 22,800 supporters. The deadline for the end of signing the online petition is on January 20, 2010. The second petition demanded an apology from the British government for Turing, who was alleged to have been prosecuted because of his homosexuality. The second petition was started by Cameron Buckner in support of Cumming’s first petition. So far, Buckner’s petition has 8,700 signatories. Based on the records of the British National Archives British National Archives Turing joined the British government’s Government Code and Cypher School during World War II specifically to decipher the Enigma machine used by the Germans. His paper, “On Computable Numbers” led to the creation of the “Turing machine,” a thought process experiment that simulated the logic of a computer algorithm. Turing’s work on computational algorithms thus led to future development of computer science concepts, as well as the modern computer. But in 1953 Turing was arrested for being a homosexual and was subjected to chemical castration using estrogen injections. He died by consuming a cyanide-laced apple the following year.