Melbourne, Australia — An Australian judge on Thursday rejected an appeal by a former US Marine Corps pilot Daniel Duggan To avoid extradition to the United States over allegations that he illegally trained Chinese military pilots more than a decade ago.
Dugan is accused of training Chinese military pilots while working as an instructor at a flight test academy in South Africa. Dogan denied these allegations, saying that they were merely political positions and that the United States was unfairly targeting him.
Federal Court Judge James Stelios ruled the appeal was dismissed with no error of jurisdiction in 2024 by the then Attorney General Mark Dreyfus In order to extradite Dogan.
Duggan’s wife and mother of his six children, Saverin Duggan, told reporters outside court in Canberra that his lawyers would consider filing a further appeal. The lawyers are also asking Michel Rolland, Dreyfus’s successor as prosecutor, to cancel the extradition order.
“We are very disappointed by this ruling and will carefully consider our options,” Seferin Dogan said. “But make no mistake, we will not give up.” “Today our search for justice does not end.”
Rowland’s office cited the court’s ruling and said in a statement that Daniel Duggan “will remain in custody for extradition in Australia until extradited to the United States.”
The 2016 indictment from the US District Court in Washington, which was unsealed in late 2022, alleges that Dugan conspired with others to provide training to Chinese military pilots in 2010 and 2012, and possibly at other times, without applying for a proper license.
Prosecutors allege Duggan received about nine payments totaling about A$88,000 ($61,000) from another co-conspirator as well as travel to the United States, South Africa and China for what is sometimes described as “personal development training.”
Duggan, 57, born in Boston, has been held in maximum-security prisons since he was 17. He was arrested in 2022 At a supermarket near his family’s home in New South Wales.