A former pilot will be unable to sell his family's house to fund his hefty legal bills as he faces extradition to the United States over accusations he unlawfully trained Chinese fighter pilots.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Daniel Edmund Duggan, an Australian father of six and former US citizen, was arrested at a supermarket car park in central-west NSW in October 2022 after a request from US authorities.
If extradited, he will face court on charges of violating and conspiring to violate arms control laws, conspiring to defraud the US government and money laundering.
In 2011 or 2012, he allegedly received either $116,000 or $166,000 for his role in a conspiracy to train Chinese pilots at a South African flight school.
Duggan, who denies the charges and is fighting his extradition, made an application in the NSW Supreme Court to set aside a restraining order barring him from selling a property at Saddleback Mountain, on the state's south coast.
At a hearing earlier this month, his lawyers argued the order should be discharged because of two errors in its details that mistakenly put Duggan as director of the firm Power Art Trading and misspelled the name of the company.
The company belongs to Duggan's wife, Saffrine, and is the owner of the Saddleback Mountain property.
On Wednesday, Justice Nicholas Chen dismissed Duggan's application.
The judge found the errors, which were admitted to by the Australian Federal Police, were at most of "peripheral evidential relevance".
"It is, in my respectful view, not open to characterise that matter as material in any sense," he wrote.
The misstatements were neither deliberate nor intentional but were rather the "product of innocent inadvertence and inattention to detail", Justice Chen said.
Saffrine Duggan purchased the seven-bedroom homestead in 2014 for $1.15 million and had listed the acreage for sale to raise funds for her husband's legal bills.
In a statement, she said the family was devastated by the decision.
"These orders place a dark cloud over the futures of six Australian children," Ms Duggan said.
"It will also make it very difficult for us to fight for justice for my beloved husband who has been locked up in solitary confinement without local charges for almost 14 months.
"We not only face a second Christmas without Dan, this decision makes it near impossible for us to fight for his freedom."
If convicted in the US, Duggan faces up to 60 years in prison. Australia does not have equivalent laws.
Australian Associated Press
