Ex-US Marine Pilot Detained by Australia Charged With Conspiracy to Aid China’s Military
19:08 GMT 13.12.2022 (Updated: 19:11 GMT 13.12.2022)
© AP Photo / Shao Jing/Xinhua
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Former US Marine Corps military pilot and flight instructor Daniel Duggan was arrested by Australian police in October, and faces extradition to his home country, the US – whose citizenship he renounced, over allegations that he helped train Chinese military pilots. Duggan has denied any wrongdoing.
A US court unsealed an indictment last week, charging retired Marine Corps Major Daniel Duggan with four crimes – conspiracy to unlawfully export defense services to China, money laundering, violation of the US Arms Export Control Act and violation of international arms trafficking regulations.
The indictment, released on Friday by the District of Columbia, but revealed to the media on Tuesday, dates back to 2017, and alleges that Duggan “provided military training to PRC (People’s Republic of China) pilots” at a South African flight school on three separate occasions between 2010 and 2012. Duggan was said to have given “instruction on the tactics, techniques and procedures associated with launching aircraft from, and landing aircraft on, a naval aircraft carrier,” according to the indictment.
The ex-Marine and two unnamed co-conspirators (including one Briton and one South African) did not have a license to provide “defense services” to a foreign military, the indictment said.
Duggan, 54, was arrested at his Orange, New South Wales home on October 21, and jailed at the Bathurst Correctional Centre in Mitchell before being transferred to Goulburn Supermax, Australia’s highest-security prison, pending possible extradition to the US, despite the fact that he is an Australian citizen.
His arrest came just days after Britain announced its own probe into ex-pilots accused of training Chinese military personnel, and a US report alleging that hundreds of retired US military personnel had worked training foreign armies.
Mr. Duggan’s lawyer, Dennis Miralis, said his client “denies having breached any US law, any Australian law, any international law,” and accused authorities of forcing Duggan to endure “extraordinary, unprecedented, unjustifiable” treatment.
Miralis suspects that “foreign interference” is influencing Australian authorities’ treatment of his client, and said the 54-year-old has been denied much-needed medical care and even access to paper to document his mistreatment.
“As we informed the court, this is unprecedented, to have an Australian citizen being placed in on the most severe inmate restrictions akin to people convicted of terrorist offenses and multiple homicides in circumstances where he has never been in trouble with the police either in Australia or anywhere in the world. In 22 years of practicing criminal law specializing in extradition, I am yet to see something as remarkable as this,” Miralis told a court in Australia late last month.
