Mother’s despair for Daniel Khalife (Image: PA)
Hapless Daniel Khalife harboured dreams of being a real-life 007 but his mum insists her son “does not live in the real world”
The soldier, 23, betrayed his nation to spy for an enemy state within a month of joining the Royal Corps of Signals aged 16 in 2019.
He was left “devastated” when he was told halfway through his training that his family heritage would stop him getting the security clearance required to join the SAS.
That prompted him to set about making contact with Iranian agents on Facebook.
He joined the army after dropping out of school and was assigned to the Royal Corps of Signals, a regiment involved in sensitive communications work.
His mother, Farnaz Khalife, 48, a former nurse, said: “He doesn’t think about what he is going to do, he gets things in his brain.”
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Captured soldier Khalife (Image: Met Police)
Khalife’s grandparents fled the Iranian regime, arriving in the UK in 1992. His grandmother had been a primary school teacher and his grandfather was an accountant at Tehran University.
He visited Iran just twice, taken by his mother to visit family when he was five or six and again when he was aged 13 to the island of Kish.
Farnaz was 16 when the family arrived in the UK, where she worked as a sales assistant for C&A, the clothes store, in Marble Arch and at a bank, before becoming a nurse.
Khalife’s father Abed, a chef originally from Lebanon, worked in hotels and restaurants but left the family when Daniel and his twin sister, Yasmin, were aged less than one.
The children were brought up by their mother and grandmother, who would take them to school and cook for them.
Khalife would take days off sick from Teddington secondary school so he could take delivery of items while his mother was at work at the Royal Free Hospital in Euston.
On one occasion he ordered £250 of radio equipment using money he had taken from his sister to try to listen in to pilots landing at Heathrow. On another, he bought key fobs to unlock car doors.
Once his mother arrived home to find two holes in the front door from a harpoon spear gun and more in the kitchen.
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Khalife having a day out (Image: Met Police)
She also revealed that she once found a knife in his school bag that he claimed he needed “for protection”.
During puberty he became obsessed with his physique and was addicted to the violent video game Grand Theft Auto.
After dropping out of school he attended the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, before undertaking basic training at the Army Training Centre in Pirbright, Surrey, and then the Defence School of Communications Information Systems in Blandford Forum, Dorset, before he was posted to the 1st Signal Brigade of the Royal Corps of Signals at Beacon Barracks, Stafford.
After his arrest on spying charges, he went to see his mother at her new home in Wales and told her: “I’ve done something bad.”
He said he had called MI5 “a few times” but they ignored him, adding: “I am giving them information.”
“It sounds so crazy,” his mother said. “He said he wanted to help the UK
She still believes that what had happened was a “miscommunication” and says her son loved being in the army.
And she claims the idea that he had been leaking intelligence as “ridiculous”.
She added: “He was too junior, he didn’t have access to intelligence, he didn’t have an important role. He’s a nobody.”
“I feel hopeless all of this is made up in his mind, in his brain. He doesn’t think about the consequences. It’s not reality, it’s a fantasy. He doesn’t think like a normal person.
“It’s like he has two personalities — nice, kind and caring but inside there is something else telling him to do things. He does need help, it’s heartbreaking.”