SYDNEY (AP) — A Sydney judge on Friday ruled that former U.S. Marine Corps pilot Daniel Duggan can be extradited to the United States on allegations that he illegally trained Chinese aviators, leaving the attorney-general as Duggan’s last hope of remaining in Australia.
Magistrate Daniel Reiss ordered the Boston-born 55-year-old to remain in custody awaiting extradition.
While his lawyers said they had no legal grounds to challenge the magistrate’s ruling that Duggan was eligible for extradition, they will make submissions to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus on why the pilot should not be surrendered.
“The attorney will give us sufficient time, I’m quite sure, to ventilate all of the issues that under the Extradition Act are not capable of being run in an Australian court,” Duggan’s lawyer, Bernard Collaery, told reporters outside court.
Dreyfus’ office said in a statement the government does not comment on extradition matters.
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Duggan’s wife and mother of his six children, Saffrine Duggan, said the extradition court hearing was “simply about ticking boxes.”
“Now, we respectfully ask the attorney-general to take another look at this case and to bring my husband home,” she told a gathering of reporters and supporters outside court.
The pilot has spent 19 months in maximum-security prison since he was arrested in 2022 at his family home in…
