US Marine pilot arrested in Australia labored with Chinese language hacker, lawyer says By Reuters

By Kirsty Needham

SYDNEY (Reuters) – A former U.S. Marine pilot preventing extradition from Australia on U.S. costs of coaching Chinese language navy pilots to land on plane carriers, unknowingly labored with a Chinese language hacker, his lawyer mentioned.

Daniel Duggan, 55, a naturalised Australian citizen, feared requests by Western intelligence companies for delicate data had been placing his household in danger, the lawyer mentioned in a authorized submitting seen by Reuters.

The lawyer’s submitting helps Reuters reporting linking Duggan to convicted Chinese language defence hacker Su Bin.

Duggan denies the allegations that he broke U.S. arms management legal guidelines. He has been in an Australian most safety jail since his 2022 arrest after getting back from six years working in Beijing.

U.S. authorities discovered correspondence with Duggan on digital gadgets seized from Su Bin, Duggan’s lawyer Bernard Collaery mentioned within the March submission to Australian Lawyer Common Mark Dreyfus, who will resolve whether or not to give up Duggan to the U.S. after a Justice of the Peace hears Duggan’s extradition case.

The case might be heard in a Sydney court docket this month, two years after his arrest in rural Australia at a time when Britain was warning its former navy pilots to not work for China.

Su Bin, arrested in Canada in 2014, pleaded responsible in 2016 to theft of U.S. navy plane designs by hacking main U.S. defence contractors. He’s listed amongst seven co-conspirators with Duggan within the extradition request.

Duggan knew Su Bin as an employment dealer for Chinese language state aviation firm AVIC, lawyer Collaery wrote, and the hacking case was “totally unrelated to our client”.

Though Su Bin “may have had improper connection to (Chinese) agents this was unknown to our client”, Duggan’s lawyer wrote.

‘OVERT INTELLIGENCE CONTACT’

AVIC was blacklisted by the U.S. final 12 months as a Chinese language military-linked firm.

Messages retrieved from Su Bin’s digital gadgets present he paid for Duggan’s journey from Australia to Beijing in Might 2012, in accordance with extradition paperwork lodged by the USA with the Australian court docket.

Duggan requested Su Bin to assist supply Chinese language plane elements for his High Gun vacationer flight enterprise in Australia, Collaery wrote.

The Australian Safety Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and U.S. Navy legal investigators knew Duggan was coaching pilots for AVIC and met him in Australia’s Tasmania state in December 2012 and February 2013, his lawyer wrote.

ASIO and the U.S. Navy Prison Investigation Service didn’t reply to Reuters requests for touch upon the conferences. ASIO has beforehand mentioned it could not remark because the matter was earlier than the court docket.

“An ASIO officer suggested that while carrying on 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 barred from leaving the nation in 2014, his lawyer mentioned. Duggan’s LinkedIn profile and aviation sources who knew him mentioned he was working in China as an aviation guide in 2013 and 2014.

He renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2016 on the U.S. embassy in Beijing, backdated to 2012 on a certificates, after “overt intelligence contact by U.S. authorities that may have compromised his family safety”, his lawyer wrote.

His attorneys oppose extradition, arguing there is no such thing as a proof the Chinese language pilots he educated had been navy and that he grew to become an Australian citizen in January 2012, earlier than the alleged offences.

The USA authorities has argued Duggan didn’t lose his U.S. citizenship till 2016.