Daniel Duggan: Daughter of a former US Marine 'Top Gun' military pilot fears her family's world will be torn apart if he's extradited to face accusations he shared secrets with China

The eldest child of a man locked up in isolation in a maximum security jail while facing possible extradition to America for allegedly sharing military secrets is losing hope that her dad will ever be the same again.

Daniel Duggan, a 55-year-old former US Marine pilot turned Australian citizen, is facing charges in America for allegedly training Chinese military pilots to land on aircraft carriers and combat techniques.

The US alleges that the father-of-six was able to divulge the military secrets while employed at a civilian flying school in South Africa between 2009 and 2012. 

It would be another decade before Duggan was arrested for the alleged crime in October 2022.

His daughter Molly told 60 Minutes she fears the father she once knew has been chipped away after 19 months of of isolated imprisonment inside Lithgow Correctional Centre, 150km west of Sydney.

'I probably won't have my dad back again,' she told the program.

'He's been in maximum security for so long. 

'Can you imagine being isolated like that for so long?

'He's not going to be the same person that he was before they took him.' 

She doesn't believe her dad is a criminal.

'I feel like our world's been torn apart and I want the trauma to stop,' Molly added.

Duggan faces 65 years if found guilty of the charges against him in the US, according to his wife Saffrine.

She and her husband both claim he is completely innocent as he only trained civilian pilots with information available in online textbooks while in South Africa.

Ms Duggan called for Australia to put its foot down and avoid expediting her husband for an effective 'death sentence'.

'It means that my kids lose their father, our family is torn apart for something that can be stopped,' she said.

'It's absolutely unbelievable to think that Australia would do this.'  

The family have struggled to come to terms with is Duggan's imprisonment in isolation, despite committing no crimes in Australia. 

'There's no Australian charges whatsoever. Dan was a proud military marine. He's a proud Australian,' Ms Duggan said.

'He didn't break any laws. Dan is an innocent man.

'Our truth will win.'

Duggan issued his own plea from behind bars, begging for Australians to rally against his expedition. 

'I asked the people of Australia to please help us help my family and to, to fight this injustice,' he said.

In a phone call to a friend from prison, Duggan also expressed the fears about the very real possibility of being sent to America.

'It's horrible. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy,' Duggan said.

Duggan will learn whether he will be sent to US for trial on May 24.

'We will not give up,' his wife vowed.

'He deserves to come home to his family.

'I want to be proud that our Australian government does the right thing and brings Dan home.'

Duggan joined the US Marines in 1990 and flew Harrier jets before leaving the military in 2002.

He then moved to Tasmania, where he met and fell in love with Saffrine and ran a business called Top Gun Tasmania.

While running his business, Duggan also took temporary contracts to train pilots at a flying school in South Africa. 

On top of running his business, Duggan also to train pilots in South Africa - where he is accused of sharing US military information.

The family relocated to China in 2014 but Ms Duggan claims it had nothing to do with the allegations against her husband.  

'It was the place to be, there were lots of Australians going over there. Asia was a real hotspot,' she said.

She and their children moved back to Australia in 2020 but Duggan, for an unknown reason, had his passport confiscated by the Chinese government.

He was eventually able to return in September 2022- shortly before his arrest.

On Sunday, it was also reported Duggan's lawyer claimed he unknowingly worked with a Chinese hacker.

Duggan feared requests by Western intelligence agencies for sensitive information were putting his family at risk, the lawyer said in a legal filing seen by Reuters.

The lawyer's filing supports Reuters reporting linking Duggan to convicted Chinese defence hacker Su Bin.

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

US 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 surrender Duggan to the US after a magistrate hears Duggan's extradition case.

The case will be heard in a Sydney court this month, 19 months after his arrest in Orange in central-west NSW 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 theft of US military aircraft designs by hacking major US defence contractors. He is listed among seven co-conspirators with Duggan in the extradition request.

Duggan knew Su Bin as an employment broker for Chinese state aviation company AVIC, Mr Collaery wrote, and the hacking case was 'totally unrelated to our client'.

Although Su Bin 'may have had improper connection to (Chinese) agents this was unknown to our client', Duggan's lawyer wrote.

AVIC was blacklisted by the US last year as a Chinese military-linked company.

Messages retrieved from Su Bin's electronic devices show he paid for Duggan's travel from Australia to Beijing in May 2012, according to extradition documents lodged by the United States with the Australian court.

Duggan asked Su Bin to help source Chinese aircraft parts for his Top Gun tourist flight business in Australia, Mr Collaery wrote.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and US Navy criminal investigators knew Duggan was training pilots for AVIC and met him in Australia's Tasmania state in December 2012 and February 2013, his lawyer wrote.

ASIO and the US Navy Criminal Investigation Service did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the meetings. ASIO has previously said it would not comment as the matter was before the court.

'An ASIO officer suggested that while carrying on his legitimate business operations in China, Mr Duggan may be able to gather sensitive information,' his lawyer wrote.

Duggan moved to China in 2013 and was barred from leaving the country in 2014, his lawyer said. Duggan's LinkedIn profile and aviation sources who knew him said he was working in China as an aviation consultant in 2013 and 2014.

He renounced his US citizenship in 2016 at the US embassy in Beijing, backdated to 2012 on a certificate, after 'overt intelligence contact by US authorities that may have compromised his family safety', his lawyer wrote.

His lawyers oppose extradition, arguing there is no evidence the Chinese pilots he trained were military and that he became an Australian citizen in January 2012, before the alleged offences.

The United States government has argued Duggan did not lose his US citizenship until 2016.