Canberra Could Hand Pilot Accused of PRC Links Over to US Without Trial, Aussie Ex-Diplomat Fears
19:19 GMT 26.10.2022 (Updated: 19:46 GMT 26.10.2022)
© AP Photo / Mark Schiefelbein
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Last week, UK media reported that the government had been tipped off on alleged efforts by China to recruit former Royal Air Force pilots to train their People’s Liberation Army Air Force counterpart. The report prompted Canberra to announce a formal probe into the matter, culminating in the detention of a US-born Australian national last Friday.
The October 21 arrest of former US military pilot and flight instructor Daniel Edmund Duggan by Australian Federal Police may spark another escalation in the anti-China ‘Red Scare’ campaign which has gripped many Anglosphere countries, and result in a dangerous legal precedent setting back the civil rights of Australians, Tony Kevin, a former Australian Foreign Ministry carrier officer and ambassador to Poland and Cambodia, has told Sputnik.
Duggan, 54, renounced his US citizenship to become an Australian, but faces extradition to his birth country, according to court documents seen by local media.
After being arrested at his Orange, New South Wales home, he was jailed at the nearby Bathurst Correctional Centre in Mitchell. He is expected to appear before a Sydney court next month and has been denied bail.
According to his Linkedin profile, Duggan worked in Qingdao, China between 2017 and 2020 as managing director of AVIBIZ, a “comprehensive aviation consultancy company with a focus on the fast growing and dynamic Chinese Aviation Industry.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has yet to comment on Duggan’s arrest, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin saying at a press conference Tuesday that he was not familiar with media reports on the matter.
19 October 2022, 10:03 GMT
No further information has been provided by the Australian government, with an Attorney General’s Department spokesperson saying only that “an individual was arrested on October 21, 2022, pursuant to a request from the United States of America for their provisional arrest.”
Details on the US arrest warrant or specific charges against Mr. Duggan have not been publicized.
“We don’t know why he’s been arrested. He may never be tried under Australian law if he’s simply extradited to the United States under an extradition treaty. We may literally have no knowledge of what he’s been charged with until he appears in a US court to be charged,” Kevin said.
“This is all very unsatisfactory from a civil liberties point of view, and I would hope that Australian civil liberties organizations become interested in the case,” Kevin stressed.
18 October 2022, 21:57 GMT
Pointing to what he characterized as a “remarkable lack of follow-up” on the case by Australian media, the former diplomat said he was surprised that an Australian citizen could simply be “plucked away from his home…on a sealed warrant” and threatened with extradition.
The former diplomat also pointed out that Australia’s extradition treaty with the United States ordinarily covers criminal offenses, not political ones.
“If this is a political offense that a man who used to be an American pilot is being charged because in his retirement he did certain things - or is alleged to have done certain things, I would like to see Australian court being given an opportunity to rule on the substance of this case before any question of handing him over to a foreign country. He is an Australian citizen now. And if an Australian citizen can simply be handed over to a foreign country on a sealed warrant and without any opportunity to have his case heard in an Australian court, to me that would be very disturbing,” Kevin said.
The former diplomat also expressed concerns that the Duggan case could lead to an exacerbation of the Anti-China campaign in the countries of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance (Australia, the US, Canada, the UK, and New Zealand).
“There have been some rather notorious cases over the past few years under the foreign influence laws, which were introduced a few years ago, to question the activities of Chinese journalists, Chinese academics in Australia. But this is something new and it is possibly linked to a statement made a week ago by the Australian Minister for Defense, Richard Marles, when he said that he had asked the Defense Department to investigate claims that former Australian military pilots had been recruited to work in China,” Kevin said.
Kevin believes the Australian government can be expected to view any contacts with China with a degree of suspicion going forward, and warned that this could have an impact on the Australian Chinese community, which is sizable and has family ties with China. “It’s a very delicate area and as an Australian I’m very disturbed at this story. Very disturbed,” he said.
18 October 2022, 15:57 GMT
Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales Canberra at the Australian Defense Force Academy, is confident that Duggan’s arrest is linked to alleged wrongdoing, such as the violation of a non-disclosure or other confidentiality agreement he signed after retiring from the US Air Force. The observer assured Sputnik that Australia’s federal courts are “completely independent from outside political interference” and that Duggan would “be given every protection afforded by Australian law.”
“In Australia, China tops the list of counterintelligence threats. Any issue involving China and defense matters would immediately raise suspicions,” Thayer explained, pointing to unconfirmed media reports from earlier this month that Chinese law enforcement has been operating in secret on Australian territory.
Duggan’s possible extradition to the US is covered by existing agreements between Australia and the US, Dr. Thayer said.
“Australia will not extradite to countries where the death penalty may be enforced. But Australia will extradite if assurances are given that the death penalty is off the table. It is important to note that the U.S. charges are under seal and why the U.S. has requested extradition can only be speculated,” the academic assured.
