Former US Navy pilot arrested in Australia worked with Chinese hacker, lawyer claims

Washington:

A former US Navy pilot fighting extradition from Australia on US charges of training Chinese military pilots to land on aircraft carriers unknowingly worked with a Chinese hacker, his lawyer said.

Daniel Duggan, 55, a naturalized Australian citizen, feared requests for confidential information by Western intelligence agencies were putting his family at risk, his lawyer said in a legal document seen by Reuters.

The lawyer’s request supports Reuters reporting linking Duggan to convicted Chinese defense hacker Su Bin.

Duggan denies allegations that he violated US gun control laws. He has been in an Australian maximum security prison since his arrest in 2022 after returning from six years working in Beijing.

U.S. 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 hand Duggan over to the U.S. after a magistrate hears the Duggan extradition case.

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

Su Bin, arrested in Canada in 2014, pleaded guilty in 2016 to stealing US military aircraft blueprints by hacking major US defense contractors. He is listed among Duggan’s seven co-conspirators in the extradition request.

Duggan knew Su Bin as a job broker for Chinese state-owned aviation company AVIC, attorney Collaery wrote, and the hacking case had “no relation to our client.”

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

‘Open Intelligence Contact’

AVIC was blacklisted in the US last year as a company linked to the Chinese military.

Messages recovered from Su Bin’s electronic devices show he paid for Duggan’s trip from Australia to Beijing in May 2012, according to extradition documents filed by the United States with the Australian court.

Duggan asked Su Bin to help acquire 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 knew Duggan was training pilots for AVIC and found him in the Australian state of Tasmania in December 2012 and February 2013, his lawyer wrote.

ASIO and the US Navy Criminal Investigative 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 court.

“An ASIO official has suggested that by carrying out his legitimate business operations in China, Mr Duggan may be able to collect confidential 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 said he worked 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, dated 2012 in a certificate, after “overt intelligence contact by U.S. authorities that may have compromised the safety of his family,” his attorney.

His lawyers oppose extradition, arguing 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 crimes.

The United States government argued that Duggan did not lose his American citizenship until 2016.

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