Former US Marine Corps pilot Daniel Duggan is extradited from Australia to the United States on charges of illegally training Chinese airmen. Australia’s Attorney General Mark Dreyfus approved the extradition on Monday, ending the Boston-born 55-year-old’s nearly two-year attempt to avoid repatriation to the United States
Duggan, who served in the Marines for 12 years before emigrating to Australia and renounced his U.S. citizenship, has been in a maximum security prison ever since arrested in 2022 at his family home in New South Wales state. He is the father of six children.
Dreyfus confirmed in a statement Monday that he had agreed to the extradition, but did not say when Duggan would be transferred to the United States
Warwick Ponder/Handout via REUTERS
“Duggan was given the opportunity to explain why he should not be extradited to the United States. In making my decision, I considered all of the materials available to me,” Dreyfus said in the statement.
In May, a judge in Sydney ruled that Duggan could be extradited to the United States, leaving an appeal to the attorney general as the last hope for Duggan to remain in Australia. A 2016 indictment in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., unsealed in late 2022, said: Prosecutors said Duggan conspired with others to kill Chinese military pilots in 2010 and 2012 and possibly at other times to train without submitting a corresponding license application.
Prosecutors say he received payments totaling about $61,000 and international travel from another conspirator for what was sometimes called “personal development training.”
If convicted, Duggan could face up to 60 years in prison.
He denies the allegations: “We feel let down by the Australian government and are deeply disappointed that it has completely failed in its duty to protect an Australian family,” his wife Saffrine Duggan said in a statement on Monday. “We are now considering our options.”
