Nearly two and a half years after his dramatic arrest at the request of U.S. authorities, former U.S. Marine Daniel Duggan has lost his final legal bid to block extradition from Australia, setting the stage for his transfer to the United States to face arms trafficking charges.
The 57-year-old Australian citizen, who renounced his U.S. citizenship years ago, was first taken into custody in October 2022 in the New South Wales regional city of Orange. U.S. prosecutors allege that between 2010 and 2012, Duggan violated American arms trafficking laws by providing unauthorized flight training to Chinese fighter pilots in South Africa. Duggan has repeatedly denied all accusations against him.
On Thursday, a Federal Court of Australia judge dismissed Duggan’s appeal against an earlier extradition approval, a ruling that paves the way for his removal to the U.S. The decision marks a significant turning point in a high-profile transnational legal case that has strained the family’s finances and personal well-being.
Duggan’s legal team had long argued that the extradition request did not meet Australia’s requirements, noting that the charges Duggan faces in the U.S. do not have a matching equivalent under Australian law – a core condition for approving cross-border extradition. Despite that pushback, then-Attorney General Mark Dreyfus signed off on the extradition in 2024, a decision Duggan appealed to the Federal Court.
Outside the courtroom after the ruling, Duggan’s wife Saffrine spoke publicly about the family’s devastation. She described her husband, a father of six currently held in an Australian maximum-security prison, as an ordinary Australian resident who never violated any Australian laws. She called on the Australian federal government to step in and halt the extradition process.
Since Duggan’s arrest in a supermarket parking lot – moments after he dropped his children off at school – the family has endured more than 1,200 days of ongoing trauma, Saffrine told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She added to the Australian Associated Press that the multi-year legal battle has cost the family roughly half a million Australian dollars. A court injunction placed on the family’s home has prevented them from selling the property to cover legal fees, leaving them in severe financial strain.
Under the terms of the Federal Court’s ruling, Duggan has been ordered to cover the Australian government’s legal costs related to the case. He retains the right to launch a new appeal within the next 28 days. If the extradition moves forward and Duggan is ultimately convicted on all U.S. charges, he faces a maximum sentence of 65 years in American federal prison.