Ex-marine Daniel Duggan appeals extradition to US over claims of training Chinese pilots
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Former U.S. Marine Corps pilot Daniel Duggan appealed his plea Thursday extradited from australia More than a decade ago, the United States was sued over allegations it illegally trained Chinese military aviators.
duggan Accused of training Chinese military pilots While working as an instructor at the South African Test Flight Academy in 2012. Wellington appeared in court in Canberra to appeal with his lawyer after traveling 350 kilometers (218 miles) from a prison in New South Wales state.
Federal Court of Australia Judge James Stellios will deliver his decision on a yet-to-be-determined date following a one-day hearing in the national capital Canberra.
The indictment, filed in 2016 by the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and unsealed in late 2022, alleges that Duggan conspired with others to train Chinese military pilots in 2010 and 2012, and possibly at other times, without applying for a proper license.
Prosecutors allege Duggan received approximately nine payments totaling 88,000 Australian dollars ($61,000) from another co-conspirator and also traveled to the United States, South Africa and China for training sometimes described as “personal development training.”
Duggan denied the allegations and said they political stance By the USA, which unfairly excluded him. He has been held in maximum security prisons since his death. Arrested in 2022 at a supermarket near his family’s home in New South Wales.
Then-Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus approved the extradition of the 57-year-old in December, but his lawyers argued in court on Thursday that there were legal flaws in the extradition process.
Dreyfus was replaced by attorney general Michelle Rowland in May, who did not reconsider her predecessor’s decision to send Boston-born Duggan back to the United States.
“The government notes the proceedings taken in the Federal Court today in relation to Mr. Duggan,” Rowland’s office said in a statement, adding that it was inappropriate to comment further as the case remained in court.
Saffrine Duggan, Duggan’s wife and mother of his six children, told supporters outside court on Thursday that Rowland “could release Dan at any time.”
“He is being used as a pawn in the ideological war between the US and China and Australian government institutions have allowed this to happen and are willing participants,” Saffrine Duggan said. “My husband did not break any Australian laws and was an Australian citizen when the alleged pilot training took place.”
Daniel Duggan’s lawyer Christopher Parkin told the court it was “extraordinary” that someone accused of breaking US law could be extradited from Australia for a case in South Africa.
Duggan served in the US Marine Corps for 12 years before emigrating to Australia in 2002. He gained Australian citizenship in January 2012 and renounced his US citizenship in the process.
