Brisbane, Australia CNN —
Former Marine Daniel Duggan once flew Harrier jets for the United States and landed and landed on international naval aircraft carrier missions as part of Marine Attack Squadron 214, based in Yuma, Arizona.
That was over 20 years ago, but his tenure since retiring from the military is now the subject of a US indictment alleging he used his expertise to teach Chinese pilots how to land aircraft on aircraft carriers, which he denies.
Since last October, 54-year-old Duggan has been held in a maximum-security prison in the Australia region while his lawyers fight an extradition order approved by Australia’s Attorney General to send him back to the United States to face charges including money laundering and conspiracy to export US defense services.
On Tuesday, Duggan’s lawyers pleaded for a stay of extradition as the Australian Office of the Inspector General for Intelligence and Security (IGIS) investigates allegations of wrongdoing by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), including allegations that Duggan was “lured” from China, where he lived, to Australia, where the US had legal avenues to arrest him.
The case comes as the US and its allies seek to unite against China in the Indo-Pacific, where Beijing has fortified islands with military installations it fears could one day be used in a regional conflict.
At Lithgow Correctional Centre, where he is being held, Duggan told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that he was “living through a nightmare”. “I strongly disagree with the charges in their entirety,” he said.
Duggan’s wife Saffrine wants Australian officials to block his extradition, and on Tuesday she and some of their six children stood outside court holding up signs calling for his release.
“We are appalled that something like this could happen, not just to us but to everyone,” Saffrine Duggan told her supporters.
“I never thought something like this could ever happen in Australia, let alone our family. My family is brave and strong, as are our friends and my husband, but we’re all terribly torn apart.”
Paul Devitt/CNN
Saffrine Duggan speaks to supporters in a Sydney court on Tuesday, July 25, as lawyers represent her husband’s case.
After completing his last mission as a major in the US Marines, Duggan moved to Australia in 2002. In 2011 he met Saffrine, a year later he became an Australian citizen, renounced his US citizenship and the family moved to China.
Saffrine and the children moved back to Australia in 2018, and Duggan joined them in September 2022 after receiving Australian security clearance for a pilot’s license. say his followers.
But within a few weeks, that permit was revoked and he was taken into custody.
The charges relate to a period between November 2009 and November 2012, when Duggan — then a US citizen — is believed to have trained Chinese military pilots in China, according to a 2017 indictment unsealed last December.
The indictment states that “as early as 2008” Duggan received an email from the US State Department telling him he needed To with the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls and apply for a permit to train a foreign air force.
Instead, it is alleged that he conspired with others – including the Test Flying Academy of South Africa (TFASA) – to export defense services in violation of an arms embargo against China.
Courtesy of Saffrine Duggan
An undated picture of former US fighter pilot Daniel Duggan with his wife Saffrine in Tasmania.
In a statement to CNN, TFASA said the company complies with the laws of every jurisdiction in which it operates.
The statement said Duggan was on a test pilot contract for the company in South Africa between November and December 2012 and “never worked for TFASA on any of its training mandates in China”.
The indictment alleges that Duggan negotiated directly with a Chinese company to provide additional defense services, for a fee, including “assessment of pilot trainees, testing of naval aviation equipment, instruction in tactics, techniques and procedures for launching aircraft from and landing on a naval aircraft carrier.”
Duggan told the ABC that none of the training involved disclosing classified or proprietary information. “It’s all public domain, open-source information that anyone who’s interested can look up on Google or Wikipedia,” he said.
The training provided by TFASA allegedly involved the operation of a T-2 Buckeye, a twin-engine airliner purchased in the US and exported to South Africa without US approval.
In its statement to CNN, TFASA said it merely leased the plane from a business partner in South Africa and never attempted to buy it. Duggan also flew the T-2, among other planes, during his contract, but the company stopped using the plane when officials at the US Embassy in South Africa spoke out, TFASA added.
Courtesy of Saffrine Duggan
Former US fighter pilot Daniel Duggan is being held in Australia awaiting extradition to the US. Among other things, he is accused of having trained Chinese military pilots.
Duggan does not deny training Chinese pilots, but claims they were civilians — aircraft enthusiasts looking to hone their skills or aspiring members of China’s then-fast-growing aviation industry.
Glenn Kolomeitz, a former Australian Defense Forces member and advocate for the family, told CNN that it’s “very, very common for people to leave the military and work abroad.”
“Dan was just an instructor, just a pilot trainer. It is,” he told CNN.
“He was not part of the company (TFASA), he was not involved in administration or management in any way and how could he have even thought or even considered that this would be illegal when so many people, including senior staff from the RAF, the British Air Force, are involved in this training.”
On October 18, three days before Duggan was arrested in Australia, the UK Ministry of Defense issued a statement warning that it was “taking decisive steps to stop Chinese recruitment programs that are attempting to poach serving and former UK armed forces pilots”.
The next day, Australia’s Defense Minister Richard Marles said he had asked his ministry to investigate reports that former Australian military pilots had also been recruited by TFASA to work in China. And a spokesman for the New Zealand Defense Force confirmed to Portal that four of its former military pilots had been recruited by the company.
Two days later, Duggan was taken into custody near his home in rural New South Wales and only learned of the allegations against him 62 days later, Saffrine said. If found guilty, he faces up to 65 years in prison.
“It was devastating. The children and I were upset. It’s just a fight It’s a daily struggle. The children have many questions. constant tears I mean, it’s awful,” she told CNN.
Paul Devitt/CNN
Daniel Duggan’s children joined protesters on Sunday, July 23, 2023 to call for their father’s release.
Since Duggan’s arrest, Britain and Australia have taken action to tighten laws on ex-servicemen training foreign armed forces.
“The new legislation that is being developed will remove any doubts about the application of these laws to the full breadth of our defense secrets,” said a spokesman for Marles.
In a speech in February, Mike Burgess, Australia’s director general for security and head of ASIO, said a “small but worrying” number of Australian veterans were willing to “put money ashore”.
“These individuals are lackeys, ‘top tools’ rather than ‘top weapons’.” Selling our wartime capabilities is nothing more than selling our secrets – especially when the training and tactics are transferred to countries that will use them to fill capability gaps and could use them against us or our allies at some point in the future,” he said.
News of Duggan’s arrest spread through the ranks of former US Marines, says Ben Hancock, a retired colonel who held a rank above Duggan in the late 1990s when he was deployed on missions that took him to the Arabian Gulf and across Asia, with a final stop in Townsville, Australia.
“He was what we called a weapons and tactics instructor, which is the highest instructor rating you can get in the Marine Corps,” he said.
“It’s a very expensive course, you have to be carefully selected to be sent there. And then when you come back, you become the training guru for everyone else in the squadron,” he said. “He was top notch. I entrusted my life to him.”
Hancock said Duggan left the service as an “honorable Marine” and although he has not spoken to him since his arrest, they have kept in touch via email sporadically over the years.
Hancock said the T-2 Buckeye has been used for many generations by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps pilots to learn maneuvers on a ship – how to launch and capture aircraft and make pinned landings.
US Department of Defense
Aircraft from Training Squadron 86 mark the final training flight of the T-2 Buckeye, the Navy’s longest serving jet trainer, Pensacola, Fla., Aug. 8, 2008.
He said it was “unusual” to see a T-2 Buckeye at a civilian flight school since most of them are “mothballed,” but described it as a great introductory aircraft for military training.
“It’s a great aerobatic plane if you want to teach someone how to fly a twin-engine jet, how to handle jets, the speed of jets over prop planes and then do aerobatics and stall series… It’s a great plane to train someone in extreme flight environments that allow you to safely recover the plane,” he said.
He said he didn’t see the evidence against Duggan but wonders why no one else was charged, saying the majority of Duggan’s experience has been piloting Harriers that take off and land vertically, which requires a different approach.
“As Harrier pilots, all our time at sea we’ve made short launches using the Harrier’s capability, not a catapult. We started under our own power, and then we landed vertically every time we landed. And the Chinese don’t have such jets,” he said. “So in my opinion, Dan didn’t have the expertise to train people to do that. It’s the wrong way to approach and land.”
In its statement to CNN, TFASA declined to teach Chinese military pilots aircraft carrier approach and landing techniques.
“TFASA provides training for test pilots, flight test engineers and basic flight instructors under strictly controlled safety conditions. All training aspects and materials are strictly unclassified and are either open source or provided by the customers themselves. “None training involves confidential tactics or other information or any frontline activity,” the statement said.
Duggan’s supporters believe he has become embroiled in a hardened crackdown on China by Western allies under Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who in recent years has expanded the military and expressed his intention to “reunite” the democratic island of Taiwan with the mainland, although he has never controlled it.
Ng Han Guan/AFP/Getty Images/File
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping before talks at a hotel in Beijing August 19, 2011.
At the time Duggan was allegedly training Chinese military pilots, Xi entered the international scene, visiting the US to meet then-Vice President Joe Biden and proposing to strengthen their cooperation.
A few years later, under former President Donald Trump, relations deteriorated as both countries were locked in a trade war and relations remain extremely strained to this day.
Duggan’s arrest in 2022 came as the US, Britain and Australia forged a stronger security relationship under AUKUS, the deal they signed in 2021 to join forces in the Pacific to counter an increasingly assertive China.
Kolomeitz, the family supporter, says Duggan is being used to send a message to Beijing to stop hiring its former military personnel.
“Don’t recruit ex-Western military personnel — that’s the point. Right?” he said. “It sends a message to China and helps push through those authorities’ legislative plans.”
The court will hear the arguments on Tuesday and will decide whether to grant a stay at a later date.