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A former U.S. Marine pilot facing extradition from Australia on charges of training Chinese military pilots to land on aircraft carriers unknowingly collaborated with a Chinese hacker, his legal representative revealed.
According to a legal filing seen by Reuters, Daniel Duggan, 55, a naturalized Australian citizen, was concerned that requests for sensitive information from Western intelligence agencies were endangering his family.
The filing supports earlier Reuters reports linking Duggan to convicted Chinese defense hacker Su Bin.
Duggan denies allegations of violating U.S. arms control laws and has been detained in an Australian maximum security prison since his 2022 arrest following a six-year period working in Beijing.
U.S. authorities allegedly found correspondence with Duggan on electronic devices seized from Su Bin, as stated by Duggan's lawyer Bernard Collaery in a March submission to Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, who will make the decision regarding Duggan's extradition after a magistrate hears his case.
The case is scheduled to be heard in a Sydney court this month, two years after Duggan's arrest in rural Australia, coinciding with warnings from Britain to its former military pilots about working for China.
Su Bin, arrested in Canada in 2014, pleaded guilty in 2016 to stealing U.S. military aircraft designs by hacking major U.S. defense contractors. He is listed as one of seven co-conspirators with Duggan in the extradition request.
Duggan allegedly knew Su Bin as an employment broker for the Chinese state aviation company AVIC, according to lawyer Collaery, who emphasized that the hacking case was "completely unrelated to our client."
While Su Bin "may have had improper connections to (Chinese) agents, this was unknown to our client," Duggan's lawyer wrote.
AVIC was blacklisted by the U.S. last year as a Chinese military-linked company.
Messages retrieved from Su Bin's electronic devices indicate that he funded Duggan's travel from Australia to Beijing in May 2012, according to U.S. extradition documents filed with the Australian court.
Duggan purportedly asked Su Bin to help source Chinese aircraft parts for his Top Gun tourist flight business in Australia, Collaery wrote.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) and U.S. Navy criminal investigators were aware that Duggan was training pilots for AVIC and met him in Tasmania, Australia, in December 2012 and February 2013, as per his lawyer's submission. ASIO and the U.S. Navy Criminal Investigation Service did not respond to requests for comment.
"An ASIO officer suggested that while conducting his legitimate business operations in China, Mr. Duggan may be able to gather sensitive information," his lawyer wrote.
Duggan moved to China in 2013 and was prevented from leaving the country in 2014, his lawyer said. Duggan's LinkedIn profile and aviation sources who knew him confirmed he was working in China as an aviation consultant in 2013 and 2014.
He renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2016 at the U.S. embassy in Beijing, backdated to 2012 on a certificate, after "overt intelligence contact by U.S. authorities that may have compromised his family's safety," his lawyer wrote.
His lawyers oppose extradition, arguing that there is no evidence that the Chinese pilots he trained were military personnel and that he became an Australian citizen in January 2012, before the alleged offenses.
The U.S. government argues that Duggan did not lose his U.S. citizenship until 2016.