What’s the scam with accused spy Dan Duggan and ASIO? His lawyer Bernard Collaery has written to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus (below) saying Duggan was cooperating with ASIO and US security at the time of the alleged offences.
Duggan faces an extradition request from the US and years in prison accused of espionage during the time he was training Chinese pilots 15 years ago.
Collaery argues in his letter that there are several flaws in the US extradition action including that Duggan had been an Australian citizen (he was originally from the US) since 2012. Petitioning the AG to dismiss the US request, Collaery dubs it a Trump era “political prosecution” which has no basis. Duggan lawfully provided aviation services, he writes.
As to the ASIO links:
“Further to the flawed links suggested in the indictment, our client’s activity in China was monitored by ASIO and United States security services. Significantly, no part of the indictment relies on person to person exchanges with our client. We are instructed that at relevant times ASIO and United States officials were discussing issues with our client, in anticipation that he would either assist them with intelligence acquisition involving China and otherwise passively enable them to monitor our client’s engagement ni China which they openly encouraged.”
Dan Duggan’s extradition. Lost in a geopolitical quagmire of laws and treaties?
Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.