The eldest child of a man locked in isolation in a maximum security prison while facing possible extradition to America for allegedly sharing military secrets is losing hope that her father will ever be the same again.
Daniel Duggan, a 55-year-old former US Navy pilot who has become an Australian citizen, is being charged in America with allegedly training Chinese military pilots in aircraft carrier landings and combat techniques.
The US claims the father of six was able to reveal military secrets while working at a civilian flying school in South Africa between 2009 and 2012.
It would be another decade before Duggan was arrested for the alleged crime in October 2022.
His daughter Molly told me 60 minutes she fears the father she once knew has been taken after 19 months of isolated captivity at Lithgow Correctional Centre, 150 kilometers west of Sydney.
“I probably won’t get my dad back,” she told the program.
Molly Duggan (left) doesn’t believe her father, Daniel Duggan (right), will ever be the same after spending 19 months in isolated captivity while extradited to the US
“He’s been in maximum security for so long.
‘Can you imagine being so isolated for so long?
“He won’t be the same person he was before they took him.”
She doesn’t believe her father is a criminal.
“I feel like our world has been torn apart and I want the trauma to stop,” Molly added.
Duggan faces 65 years if he is found guilty of the charges against him in the US, his wife Saffrine said.
She and her husband both claim he is completely innocent as he has only trained civilian pilots in South Africa using information available in online textbooks.
Ms Duggan called on Australia to stand its ground and not rush her husband into an effective ‘death sentence’.
“It means my children losing their father, our family being torn apart over something that can be stopped,” she said.
“It’s absolutely unbelievable to think that Australia would do this.”
The family has struggled to come to terms with Duggan’s isolated captivity, despite having committed no crimes in Australia.
“There are no Australian charges whatsoever. Dan was a proud military Marine. He is a proud Australian,” Ms Duggan said.
‘He hasn’t broken any laws. Dan is an innocent man.
“Our truth will win.”
Duggan made his own plea from behind bars, pleading with Australians to oppose his expedition.
“I have asked the people of Australia to please help us help my family and fight this injustice,” he said.
In a phone call to a friend from prison, Duggan also expressed fears about the very real possibility of being sent to America.
‘It’s terrible. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” Duggan said.
Saffrine Duggan (pictured on 60 Minutes) has dismissed US accusations that her husband shared military secrets with China
Duggan will find out on May 24 whether he will be sent to the US for trial.
“We will not give up,” his wife vowed.
‘He deserves to come home to his family.
“I want to be proud that our Australian government is doing the right thing and bringing Dan home.”
Duggan joined the U.S. Marines in 1990 and flew Harrier jets before leaving the military in 2002.
He then moved to Tasmania where he met and fell in love with Saffrine and ran a business called Top Gun Tasmania.
While running his business, Duggan also took out temporary contracts to train pilots at a flight school in South Africa.
In addition to running his business, Duggan will also train pilots in South Africa, where he is accused of sharing US military information.
The family moved to China in 2014, but Mrs Duggan claims this had nothing to do with the allegations against her husband.
‘It was the place to be, a lot of Australians went there. Asia was a real hotspot,” she said.
Mr Duggan (pictured) was a former US Navy pilot and trained civilian pilots in South Africa after leaving the military
They and their children moved back to Australia in 2020, but Duggan had his passport confiscated by the Chinese government for an unknown reason.
He was finally able to return in September 2022, shortly before his arrest.
It was also reported on Sunday that Duggan’s attorney claimed that he unknowingly collaborated with a Chinese hacker.
Duggan feared that requests from Western intelligence services for sensitive information would endanger his family, the lawyer said in a legal filing seen by Reuters.
The attorney’s filing supports Reuters reporting linking Duggan to convicted Chinese defense hacker Su Bin.
Duggan denies allegations that he violated U.S. gun control laws. He has been held in an Australian maximum security prison since his arrest in 2022 after returning from six years of work in Beijing.
US authorities found correspondence with Duggan on electronic devices seized from Su Bin, Duggan’s lawyer Bernard Collaery said in the March submission to Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, who will decide whether to extradite Duggan to the US after a magistrate heard Duggan’s extradition case.
The case will be heard in a Sydney court this month, 19 months after his arrest in Orange in central west NSW, at a time when Britain warned its former military pilots not to work for China.
Su Bin, who was arrested in Canada in 2014, pleaded guilty in 2016 to theft of US military aircraft designs by hacking major US defense companies. He is listed in the extradition request as one of seven co-conspirators with Duggan.
Mr Duggan (pictured), who ran Top Gun Tasmania, will learn on May 24 whether he will be sent to the US for trial
Duggan knew Su Bin as a labor broker for China’s state-owned aviation company AVIC, Mr. Collaery wrote, and the hacking case was “completely unrelated to our client.”
Although Su Bin “may have had inappropriate ties to (Chinese) agents, this was not known to our client,” Duggan’s attorney wrote.
AVIC was blacklisted by the US last year as a Chinese military-affiliated company.
Messages from Su Bin’s electronic devices show that he paid for Duggan’s trip from Australia to Beijing in May 2012, according to extradition documents filed by the United States in Australian court.
Duggan asked Su Bin to help source Chinese aircraft parts for his Top Gun tourist flight business in Australia, Mr Collaery wrote.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) and US Navy investigators knew Duggan was training pilots for AVIC and met with him in December 2012 and February 2013 in the Australian state of Tasmania, his lawyer wrote.
ASIO and the US Navy’s Criminal Investigation Service did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the meetings. ASIO previously said it would not comment as the matter was before the courts.
“An ASIO official suggested that Mr Duggan might collect sensitive information in the course of his legitimate business activities in China,” his lawyer wrote.
The family of Daniel Duggan (pictured) claim the allegations against him are false and have criticized the Australian government for keeping him in maximum security
Duggan moved to China in 2013 and was banned from leaving the country in 2014, his lawyer said. Duggan’s LinkedIn profile and aviation sources who knew him said he worked in China as an aviation consultant in 2013 and 2014.
He renounced his U.S. citizenship at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing in 2016, backdated to 2012 on a certificate, after “overt intelligence contact by U.S. authorities that may have jeopardized the safety of his family,” his lawyer wrote.
His lawyers are opposing extradition, arguing there is no evidence the Chinese pilots he trained were military personnel and that he became an Australian citizen in January 2012, before the alleged crimes.
The US government has argued that Duggan only lost his US citizenship in 2016.