SYDNEY — Australia on Monday authorised a United States extradition request for former U.S. Marines pilot Daniel Duggan, who faces expenses together with breaking U.S. arms management legislation by coaching Chinese army pilots to land on plane carriers.
Duggan, 55, a naturalised Australian citizen, was arrested by Australian Federal Police in a rural city in New South Wales state in October 2022, shortly after coming back from China, the place he had lived since 2014.
Duggan’s attorneys have argued in court docket there isn’t any proof the Chinese pilots he trained were military, and he was not a U.S. citizen on the time of the alleged offences. He renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2016 on the U.S. embassy in Beijing, backdated to 2012 on a certificates, they mentioned.
Australia’s Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus mentioned he had decided Duggan ought to be extradited to the United States to face prosecution, after a New South Wales Justice of the Peace in May discovered him eligible for give up.
“Mr Duggan was given the chance to offer representations as to why he shouldn’t be surrendered to the United States. In arriving at my choice, I took into consideration all materials in entrance of me,” Dreyfus mentioned in a press release.
Duggan, who has six youngsters in Australia and has been held in jail since his arrest, was not out there for remark.
Duggan’s household was “devastated” by the choice, after receiving a letter from the federal government saying he shall be extradited between December 30 and February 17, his spouse Saffrine mentioned in a press release.
“The household and Dan’s attorneys at the moment are contemplating their authorized choices, together with requesting particular causes for the federal government’s choice,” the assertion mentioned.
The allegations centre round a flying faculty in South Africa the place Duggan labored half time as a flying teacher greater than 12 years in the past, the assertion mentioned.
“Dan maintains his innocence and denies the allegations made in opposition to him, which weren’t thought-about a criminal offense in Australia,” it added.
An indictment unsealed by the District of Columbia court docket confirmed Duggan faces 4 expenses, and alleges he travelled between Australia, the U.S., China and South Africa between 2009 and 2012, when he was contracted by a Chinese nationwide to offer providers to a Chinese state owned firm, together with evaluations of Chinese army pilot trainees and instruction on touchdown on plane carriers.
U.S. authorities discovered correspondence with Duggan on digital units seized from Chinese hacker Su Bin, who Duggan knew as an employment dealer for Chinese state aviation firm AVIC, his attorneys beforehand mentioned.
Convicted hacker Su Bin is one in every of seven co-conspirators within the U.S. indictment, though Duggan’s attorneys argue the hacking case is unrelated.
Duggan’s arrest got here the identical week Britain warned dozens of former army pilots to cease working for China or face prosecution.
Australia toughened legal guidelines stopping former defence employees from coaching “sure international militaries” in response to the case and an investigation into one other pilot who labored on the South African flying faculty.
