Australian pilot with China links fights extradition to US, slams ‘unprecedented’ treatment

After being arrested under mysterious circumstances, Daniel Duggan has lodged a formal complaint about his ‘unprecedented’ treatment.

Pilot Daniel Duggan has been arrested and is fighting his extradition to the US. Picture: Supplied.

An Australian pilot fighting extradition to the US after he was arrested under mysterious circumstances has lodged a formal complaint with the Attorney-General claiming he is being treated like a convicted terrorist.

Daniel Edmund Duggan, 54, was detained last month at the request of the US government and has since been held in custody as an “extreme high risk restricted inmate” and denied access to medical care and stationery to write letters, his lawyer told a court on Monday.

Mr Duggan, an experienced pilot who has previously worked in China, is a naturalised Australian citizen who was living in Forest Reefs near Orange in regional NSW when he was arrested for unknown reasons on October 21.

The court heard the US had until December 20 to lodge its formal request to extradite Mr Duggan, which marks 60 days since his arrest, or else he would be eligible for release.

The motives behind the US push for extradition remains veiled in secrecy, though his arrest coincided with warnings from Australian and British authorities about the practice of former military personnel being offered lucrative contracts to train pilots in China.

The Australian this week revealed the pilot also had links to a Chinese-Canadian businessman jailed for conspiring to hack US military secrets, Su Bin.

Mr Duggan’s lawyer, Dennis Miralis, told a court at the Sydney Downing Centre on Monday that Mr Duggan had been subjected to “most restrictive conditions known to Australian Corrective Services” and had been denied treatment for a prostate con­dition and pens to document his objections.

Mr Miralis said his client, who will be moved from Silverwater Correctional Complex to Goulburn Supermax, had endured “extraordinary, unprecedented, unjustifiable” treatment, which he believed was the result of “foreign interference”.

He also said he had filed complaints with the Attorney-­General and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security against the “secrecy provisions” surrounding the case, as well as the conduct of Australian security agencies involved in the extradition.

“My client is struggling and he has been struggling for some time,” Mr Miralis said outside court.

“As we informed the court, this is unprecedented, to have an Australian citizen being placed on the most severe inmate restrictions akin to people convicted of terrorist offences and multiple homicides in circumstances where he has never been in trouble with the police neither in Australia or anywhere in the world.

“In 22 years of practising criminal law specialising in extradition, I am yet to see something as remarkable as this.”

Barrister Trent Glover, representing the US government, said the case had followed “ordinary extradition process” and Mr ­Duggan could either waive the extradition, consent to it or contest his eligibility to surrender to the US.

Mr Duggan, who has renounced his US nationality and is a father of six school-aged children, has indicated he will fight the extradition bid.

The matter has been adjourned until December 16.