A Sydney judge ruled on Friday that former United States Marine Corps pilot Daniel Duggan can be extradited to the United States. Duggan is accused of training military pilots from the Chinese Communist Party in aircraft carrier landing skills.
According to reports from Reuters and the BBC, the 55-year-old Duggan is an Australian citizen. He faces charges of violating arms control laws by allegedly training Chinese military pilots. He is also facing money laundering charges.
Duggan has denied these allegations, with his lawyer previously stating that the charges are politically motivated.
Magistrate Daniel Reiss stated on Friday that the extradition requirements have been met and that Duggan meets the conditions for surrendering to the United States.
The former Marine Corps pilot has 15 days to seek a review of this decision. The final extradition decision will be made by the Australian Minister for Justice.
Outside the courtroom, Duggan’s wife, Saffrine, told reporters and supporters that the family will appeal to Minister for Justice Mark Dreyfus to reject the extradition. “We implore the Minister for Justice to review this case and bring my husband home,” Saffrine said.
Duggan’s daughter Molly described the ruling as a “death sentence” and criticized the isolation her father has experienced during his imprisonment.
Duggan joined the Marine Corps in 1990 and piloted F-18 jets. He moved to Australia in 2002. In October 2022, shortly after returning from China, he was arrested by the Australian Federal Police in a rural town in New South Wales. Since his arrest, he has been held in Australia’s highest security prison.
Duggan’s lawyer stated that Duggan moved to China in 2013 and was prohibited from leaving in 2014. Duggan’s LinkedIn profile and aviation contacts indicate that he worked as an aviation consultant in China in 2013 and 2014.
US authorities allege that in 2012, while working at a flying school in South Africa, Duggan taught secret combat techniques to Chinese military pilots, including how to land on aircraft carriers.
In a report by the Australian video-on-demand channel 9Now’s “60 Minutes” on May 12, national security expert Charles Edel stated that the charges against Duggan are very serious.
“The military holds secrets, they can’t exchange these secrets with foreign adversaries,” Edel said. “The last thing we want to do is to make the Chinese military more capable and more adept at combat.”
Duggan claims he only taught civilian pilots in China, but the US insists these individuals were actually Chinese military pilots.
Edel mentioned that it’s often difficult to distinguish between civilian and military personnel in China due to their concept of “civil-military fusion” in acquiring technology.
If extradited to the US, Duggan would face four charges, including conspiring to illegally export defense services to China, conspiracy to commit money laundering, violating the Arms Export Control Act, and violating the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. If convicted, Duggan could spend the rest of his life in a US prison.
Reuters previously reported that Duggan is believed to have had contact with convicted Chinese defense hacker Su Bin. Su Bin was arrested in Canada in 2014 and admitted to hacking into major US defense contractors to steal designs of US military aircraft in 2016. He is listed as one of seven co-conspirators in Duggan’s extradition request.
However, Duggan’s lawyer argues that despite knowing Su Bin, the hacker case is unrelated to Duggan’s.