Australia has arrested a former U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot following a request from Washington, officials in Canberra said Tuesday, as Western governments scrambled to investigate reports that China has been poaching retired military personnel.<\/p>\n
Daniel Edmund Duggan appeared in court in New South Wales on Friday, judicial records show.<\/p>\n
“An individual was arrested on 21 October 2022 pursuant to a request from the United States of America for their provisional arrest,” the Australian attorney general’s department said in a statement. “As the matter is before the courts, it would not be appropriate to comment further.”<\/p>\n
Duggan is scheduled to appear in court again in November.<\/p>\n
An aviation source told Reuters that the FBI sought Duggan because he had worked in China. His lawyer told Reuters he could not comment.<\/p>\n
Under a treaty with Australia, the United States has 60 days following the arrest to apply for Duggan’s extradition.<\/p>\n
Duggan ran a business called Top Gun Australia, which billed itself as the country’s “premier adventure flight company.”<\/p>\n
On the company’s web page, Duggan described himself as a “former U.S. Marine Corps officer of over 12 years.” He flew missions in support of Operation Southern Watch from Kuwait and the USS Boxer, the website says.<\/p>\n
“As a highly trained fighter pilot, he flew harrier jump jets off of aircraft carriers tactically around the globe,” the website says.<\/p>\n
Duggan also flew ex-military aircraft in Australian air shows, three pilots told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Australia launched an investigation last week into what its defense minister called disturbing reports that China has been hiring retired Western air force pilots to train its military.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It seems a former US Marine Corps Harrier jump jet driver is in some hot water. … Marine aviator arrested in Aus for allegedly training Chinese mil pilots<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[349,185,331],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussies","category-crime","category-marines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/640px-Harrier_AV-8B-300x152.jpg\")
<\/p>\n