Australia agrees to extradite a former US Marine on charges of training Chinese military pilots

Former US Marine Corps pilot Daniel Duggan He will be extradited from Australia to the United States over allegations that he illegally trained Chinese pilots. Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus approved his extradition on Monday, ending a nearly two-year effort to avoid being returned to the United States.

Duggan, who served in the Marines for 12 years before immigrating to Australia and renounced his US citizenship, has been in a maximum-security prison since he was a teenager. He was arrested in 2022 At his family home in New South Wales. He is the father of six children.

Dreyfus confirmed in a statement on Monday that he had agreed to the extradition but did not say when Duggan would be transferred to the United States.

“Doğan was given the opportunity to provide explanations as to why he should not be extradited to the United States,” Dreyfus said in the statement. “In arriving at my decision, I took into account all of the materials before me.”

In May, a Sydney judge ruled that Duggan could be extradited to the US, leaving an appeal to the Attorney-General as Duggan’s last hope of remaining in Australia. In a 2016 indictment from the US District Court in Washington, D.C., which was unsealed in late 2022, prosecutors said Dugan conspired with others to provide training to Chinese military pilots in 2010 and 2012, and possibly at other times, without applying for a license. appropriate.

Prosecutors say he received payments totaling the equivalent of about $61,000 and international travel from a co-conspirator in exchange for what is sometimes described as “personal development coaching.”

If convicted, Dugan faces up to 60 years in prison.

“We feel abandoned by the Australian government and are deeply disappointed that they have completely failed in their duty to protect an Australian family,” his wife, Safrin Dogan, said in a statement on Monday. “We are now considering our options.”