Former US Navy pilot Daniel Duggan will be extradited from Australia to the United States on charges that he illegally trained Chinese airmen. Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus approved the extradition on Monday, ending a nearly two-year attempt by the Boston-born 55-year-old to avoid being returned to the United States.
Duggan, who served in the Marines for 12 years before immigrating to Australia and renouncing his US citizenship, has been in a maximum security prison since. arrested in 2022 at his family home in the state of New South Wales. He is the father of six children.
Dreyfus confirmed in a statement Monday that he had approved the extradition, but did not say when Duggan would be brought to the United States.
Warwick Ponder/Handout via REUTERS
“Duggan was given an opportunity to provide representations as to why he should not be extradited to the United States. In reaching my decision, I considered all the material before me,” Dreyfus said in the statement.
In May, a Sydney judge ruled that Duggan could be extradited to the United States, leaving an appeal to the attorney general as Duggan’s last hope of remaining in Australia. prosecutors said Duggan conspired with others to provide training to Chinese military pilots in 2010 and 2012, and possibly on other occasions, without applying for the proper license.
Prosecutors say he received payments totaling about $61,000 and international travel from another conspirator for what was sometimes described as “personal development training.”
If convicted, Duggan faces up to 60 years in prison.
He denies the allegations “We feel abandoned by the Australian government and deeply disappointed that they have completely failed in their duty to protect an Australian family,” his wife, Saffrine Duggan, said in a statement on Monday. “We are now considering our options.”