A former soldier who escaped from prison and went on the run for three days has been found guilty of spying for Iran.
Daniel Khalife, 23, was serving in the British Army when he “exposed military personnel to serious harm” by collecting sensitive information and passing it to agents of the Middle Eastern country.
He was paid in cash for the secret information gathered and told handlers he would stay in the military for 25-plus years for them.
Prosecutors told his trial he played “a cynical game”, claiming he wanted a career as a double agent to help the British Intelligence Services, when in fact he gathered “a very large body of restricted and classified material”.
On Thursday, jurors at Woolwich Crown Court found Khalife had breached the Official Secrets and Terrorism Acts.
He was cleared of carrying out a bomb hoax and had already admitted escaping from Wandsworth prison.
Khalife, wearing a blue shirt and pale trousers, calmly replaced his glasses as the verdicts were read out, and did not show any emotion.
Police described him as the “ultimate Walter Mitty character that was having a significant impact on the real world”.
Khalife created and passed on fake documents supposedly from MPs, senior military officials and the security services, but also sent genuine army documents.
Having approached a “middle-man” by sending him a Facebook message, Khalife told the Iranians he would stay undercover in the British Army for “25-plus years” for them.
He joined the British Army in 2018, two weeks before his 17th birthday, and served with the Royal Corps of Signals.
In 2021, Khalife secretly gathered the names of serving soldiers, including those in the special forces.
He took a photo of a handwritten list of 15 of them, having been sent an internal spreadsheet of promotions in June 2021.
Prosecutors believe he sent the list to Iran before deleting any evidence.
After his arrest, he told police he had wanted to offer himself to UK security agencies all along, having emailed MI6 as early as 2019.
Khalife told jurors he wanted to prove bosses wrong after being told his Iranian heritage could stop him working in military intelligence, and came up with his elaborate double agent plot after watching the TV spy thriller Homeland.
In November 2021, he made an anonymous call to the MI5 public reporting line, confessing to being in contact with Iran for more than two years.
He offered to help the British security services, and said he wanted to return to his normal life.
If Khalife had not contacted MI5 to tell them about his contact with Iran, neither they nor the police would ever have known, his barrister told the court.
Gul Nawaz Hussain KC, defending, said the double agent plot was “hapless” and “sometimes bordering on the slapstick”, more “Scooby-Doo” than James Bond or Homeland.
Prosecutors said Khalife prepared a bomb hoax at his Staffordshire barracks in January 2023.
But the trial heard how a soldier who arrived in the room pulled wires out of the device to prove it was not real.
A bomb disposal unit was only called after police attended and looked at the device several days later.
In September 2023, he escaped from the category B prison HMP Wandsworth, in south-west London, by clinging to the underside of a food delivery truck.
Five days before his successful escape, he attached a sling to the underside of a lorry made from kitchen trousers and carabiners.
As the driver of the Mercedes truck, Balazs Werner, was leaving the prison, two guards checked the vehicle with a “torch and mirror”, and told him someone was missing from the prison.
When the guards said he could drive off, he was surprised the prison was not in lockdown, and said “are you sure?” but was allowed to drive out through the prison gates.
While on the run, Khalife bought clothes from Marks & Spencer and a coffee from McDonald’s, and walked beside the River Thames.
He made one last attempt to contact the Iranians before he was caught, sending a Telegram message which said simply: “I wait.”
Concern that he would try a similar stunt during his trial was so high that during his evidence, he was taken to and from the witness box in handcuffs.
Khalife told his trial he escaped in the hope he would be kept in a segregated high-security unit at HMP Belmarsh, away from “sex offenders” and “terrorists” after his recapture.
Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, said of Khalife’s crimes: “Ego is a factor, I’ve got no doubt he’s got an uncanny ability to manipulate others.
“I think he probably enjoyed the thrill of deception throughout.”
Bethan David, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “As a serving soldier of the British Army, Daniel Khalife was employed and entrusted to uphold and protect the national security of this country.
“But, for purposes of his own, Daniel Khalife used his employment to undermine national security.
“He surreptitiously sought out and obtained copies of secret and sensitive information which he knew were protected and passed these on to individuals he believed to be acting on behalf of the Iranian state.
“The sharing of the information could have exposed military personnel to serious harm, or a risk to life, and prejudiced the safety and security of the United Kingdom.”
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer welcomed the verdict, Downing Street said.
Asked whether he was concerned Iran had managed to recruit a British soldier, an official spokesman added: “We’ve always been very clear that the behaviour of the Iranian regime poses a threat to the safety and security of the UK and our allies.
“This was an isolated incident but we take these incidents extremely seriously and, more broadly, it is why we continue to take strong action and hold the Iranian regime to account.”
The former soldier will be sentenced early next year and faces a lengthy prison sentence.
