[attach id=285560 size="medium"]Alan Turing on the front cover of the magazine Attitude.[/attach]

Codebreaker Alan Turing, who was imprisoned and chemically castrated as a result of his homosexuality, is to be honoured with a posthumous award for his achievements at an annual ceremony hosted by leading gay magazine Attitude.

Turing, who committed suicide in 1954 in the years following his conviction for gross indecency, has been celebrated for his work at Bletchley Park and is considered to be one of the key figures modern computer science.

Actor Benedict Cumberbatch is currently filming a new role playing Touring in the forthcoming film The Imitation Game.

House of Commons speaker John Bercow will present the “icon award for outstanding achievement” to Turing’s nieces Inagh Payne and Janet Robinson at a ceremony being staged at the Royal Courts of Justice.

Turing – who was 41 when he died as a result of cyanide poisoning – is also being featured on one of six different covers for the new edition of the magazine, the first time a dead cover star has been used.

It was a good thing the authorities hadn’t known he was a homosexual during the war, because if they had, they would have fired him – and we would have lost

Attitude has used a passport picture for the cover image, which is accompanied by the headline: “The gay man who saved the world.”

Experts have said Turing’s work shortened Word War II by two years. Professor Jack Good, a fellow Bletchley codebreaker, has said of him: “It was a good thing the authorities hadn’t known he was a homosexual during the war, because if they had, they would have fired him – and we would have lost.”

Parliamentary moves are ongoing to pardon Turing of his conviction and in 2009 the then prime minister Gordon Brown said he was sorry for the way he had been treated.