Former US Marine Corps pilot Daniel Dugan will be extradited from Australia to the United States over allegations that he illegally trained 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 being returned to the United States.
Duggan, who served in the Marine Corps for 12 years before immigrating to Australia and renouncing his US citizenship, has been in a maximum security prison since he was 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 transferred to the United States.
Warwick Ponder/Handout via REUTERS
“Duggan was given the opportunity to explain why he should not be released to the United States. In reaching my decision, I took into consideration all of the material before me,” Dreyfus said in the statement.
In May, a Sydney judge ruled Duggan could be extradited to the United States, leaving an appeal to the attorney general as Duggan’s last hope of remaining in Australia. In a 2016 indictment from the United States District Court in Washington, D.C., unsealed in late 2022, prosecutors said Duggan conspired with others to provide training to Chinese military pilots in 2010 and 2012, and possibly on other occasions, without apply for the appropriate license.
Prosecutors say he received payments totaling the equivalent of $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 Monday. “We are now considering our options.”
