The fight for Dan Duggan - Part 1: From 'Top Gun' to wanted man
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The day Dan was arrested was the hardest day, I thought, in my lifetime ever. First, I was off to work and Dan was dropping the kids at school. Dan had a cake in his hand, was giving it to the kids and off he dropped them to school. He went to Woolworths because he was going to cook dinner in the evening, grabbed a few things and that's when he was arrested.
In October 2022, officers from the Australian Federal Police arrested Daniel Duggan in Orange, in regional New South Wales. His wife, Safreen, was waiting to meet him for coffee.
Well, the irony is that Dan is always on time. His family comes first. So I'd waited 10 minutes for him to call me and I'd sent numerous messages on his phone. Then it got into maybe half an hour. I was so concerned. I was just about to call the police to say, I'm really worried about my husband. Something might have happened to him. And then he called me. I said, what are you talking about? I don't understand. Like, what do you mean you've been arrested? Like, for what? What could you possibly have been arrested for? You know, this is a man that's never had a parking fine. I've had more parking fines than he has.
To American prosecutors, Duggan is a former US Marine pilot accused of breaking arms trafficking laws by helping train Chinese military pilots in South Africa more than a decade ago, something he denies. To Safreen, this is her husband and the man she built a family with.
A friend introduced me to him and I thought as soon as I turned around and met him that My heart skipped a beat and I was just interested in talking to this beautiful, happy, smiley, friendly, honest man. It was beautiful. It was a couple in love and starting a life together and we did all the beautiful romance things together. We had children we knew. I knew instantly when I met Dan that this was something that I wanted to continue because there was a connection there that we still have, we still hold on tight to, that we then made a family on. That's the most heartbreaking thing for me is that all of this has ripped our family apart and we're a strong, loving family and it's devastating.
I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to 7am. Today, Safreen Duggan on her husband's fight for freedom from jail and journalist and member of the Free Dan Duggan campaign, Michael Sainsbury, on how an Australian pilot who worked in China has become the target of US prosecution. It's Monday, April 27, and this is part one of a two-part episode. Michael, could you start off by telling us who is Daniel Duggan and how did he end up in Tasmania?
Dan is a... Born in Boston, he's the youngest of nine kids. His old man was a pilot. He wanted to become a pilot. He ended up in the US Marines. He actually served in the first Gulf War, although he didn't seek combat. He was training people and had an honourable discharge from the Marines. He moved to Australia in 2005. and set up a business in Tasmania called Top Gun Australia, which offered joy flights in military-style aircraft.
This is Dan Duggan, chief pilot and managing director of Top Gun Australia. I'm a former US Marine Harrier jump jet pilot and weapons and tactics instructor.
Eventually, he became an Australian citizen, actually on Australia Day in 2012.
So from there, how did he end up in a flying school in South Africa?
Like everybody who has been in the services, you have to have a career after that. And in the early 2010s, an old aviation contact reached out from South Africa and said there was work at a quite prestigious test pilot school in South Africa called Tafasa. So Dan started talking to them and ended up going to do some work for them in 2011 and 2012. That school is kind of, you know, sits at the crossroads of elite pilot training and it was at the time of China's aviation boom. In fact, I was in China at the time. The commercial airlines there were just doubling, tripling, quadrupling flights. You know, there's three big airlines and they were, you know, really struggling to get enough people to fly the planes so they were sending people off
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