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A 26,604-signature petition calling for the immediate release of former US marine pilot and Australian citizen Daniel Duggan has been tabled in Parliament.
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Senator David Shoebridge presented the petition to Parliament on 2 July following a recent court ruling at Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court in May this year that found Duggan would be eligible for surrender to the United States.
If extradited, Duggan, who has been held in custody at a maximum security prison in Australia since October 2022, is expected to face charges relating to allegedly breaking US arms control laws by training Chinese fighter pilots.
“This petition is to urge the Australian Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, to immediately release Daniel given the clearly politically motivated case against him in the United States and to stop the injustice to an Australian citizen with a home, a wife, six children and life only in Australia,” the petition stated.
Duggan previously spent more than a decade as a pilot in the US Marine Corps before emigrating to Australia in 2002 and renouncing his American citizenship.
It’s alleged that he trained Chinese military pilots at an academy in South Africa without US government permission.
Members of the public have also raised more than $125,705 in funding to assist the Duggan family and Daniel Duggan.
“Daniel has been arrested so that the United States could make an extradition request to the Australian Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, to be extradited to the United States. Dreyfus signed this off just before Christmas,” Duggan’s wife, Saffrine Duggan, stated in a public letter addressed to Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.
“Daniel is away from his children, his beloved family, friends and community because of an obviously politically motivated case, based on a 2017 indictment that was part of the United States’ now disgraced ‘China Initiative’. This initiative has been widely criticised by members of the United States Congress, academia, civil rights groups, and Asian American communities as racial profiling and fundamentally discriminatory.
“Daniel has been caught in a geopolitical storm for working in China, doing work that has been done there for decades by Western, African, and European pilots for decades with the full knowledge of these governments.
“Daniel’s unfair treatment has resulted in a formal complaint to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security who is now investigating whether any Australian authorities including ASIO acted illegally in Dan's arrest.
“This petition is to urge the Australian Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, to immediately release Daniel given the clearly politically motivated case against him in the United States and to stop the injustice to an Australian citizen with a home, a wife, six children and life only in Australia.
“We further urge the Attorney-General to not accept any extradition request from the United States.
“Doing so while the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security is investigating the complaint made against an Australian intelligence agency would be clearly interfering with Australia’s sovereignty and trying to tamper with an independent investigation by an Australian agency.
“Daniel now finds himself a victim of the United States government’s political dispute with China, by no fault of his own. Daniel is being targeted for having renounced his United States citizenship. Daniel has been an Australian citizen since 26 January 2012 and has called Australia his home since 2002.
“Australians will not stand for interference by the United States in our country. Our family has been shattered by this experience and we urge the Australian Attorney-General to do the right thing and release Daniel.”
