An alleged accomplice of soldier-turned spy Daniel Khalife has been charged with helping the British traitor escape from prison.
Imran Chowdhury, 25, of Chingford, north-east London, is accused of assisting the Iranian defector carry out his daring escape from HMP Wandsworth clinging to the bottom of a food delivery truck.
Chowdhury was arrested in January 2024 and handed bail before being contacted by post in December by the Metropolitan Police charging him with one count of assisting an escaped prisoner.
He will appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.
A 25-year-old woman who was also arrested in February 2024 on suspicion of arresting Khalife will face no further action after police found no evidence of her involvement.
Khalife, 23, provoked a nationwide manhunt after escaping HMP Wandsworth – where he was being held on remand for the spying charges – and going on the run for three days.
Moment of capture for escaped soldier Khalife (Image: Met Police)
The ex-soldier, who has an Iranian mother and Lebanese father was recruited by the rogue state via Facebook just weeks after joining the Royal Corps of Signals.
Security officials are unsure exactly what information he actually managed to pass on the encrypted communications app Telegram as he deleted it all before being arrested.
He told jurors he had been undertaking a one-man “double agent” mission after being told his Iranian heritage would stop him getting his dream role in British intelligence.
The trial heard how Khalife played a “cynical game” after contacting a man linked to Iranian intelligence on Facebook weeks after joining the army as a 16-year-old in September 2018.
The teenage rookie created and passed on fake documents supposedly from MPs, senior military officials and the security services, but also sent genuine army documents after boasting to the Iranians that he would stay undercover in the British Army for “25-plus years”.
He collected sensitive information that posed a real danger in the wrong hands and on one occasion was sent to collect £1,500 left in a dog poo bag in a north London park.
He gathered the names of 15 serving squaddies – including elite special forces soldiers – which are believed to have been passed on to Iran before he deleted the evidence.
Then 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.
But he then fled his base at Beacon Barracks in Stafford, leaving behind a fake bomb comprising three nitrous oxide canisters taped together, on his desk.
Iranian spy Daniel Khalife (Image: Met Police)
After being arrested and charged he was remanded in custody at HMP Wandsworth where, eight months later, he carried out his audacious escape by exploiting his role as a kitchen chef to attach a sling made from torn kitchen trousers to the bottom of a food delivery lorry.
He told jurors he subsequently wanted to be caught so he could be moved to a high-security unit away from sex offenders and terrorists in HMP Belmarsh.
But Mark Heywood KC, prosecuting, branded this “nonsense” and said Khalife actually hoped to be spirited away with the help of his Iranian handlers.
He had denied the escape before admitting his guilt midway through the trial.
Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Met Police’s counter-terror command, said “Khalife is the ultimate Walter Mitty character. The problem is, he’s a Walter Mitty character that was having an extremely significant impact in the real world.
Masked spy Daniel Khalife (Image: Met Police)
“The reality is, he provided highly sensitive, protectively marked information to the Iranian state. We know very well the threat the Iranian government poses to the United Kingdom’s national security.
“Only he will know why he was doing this, I do believe there is some of this that fitted into his own fantasies, but he caused a substantial amount of damage in doing so.’
The disgraced soldier was convicted of committing an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state and eliciting information about members of the armed forces. He was cleared of perpetrating a bomb hoax.
Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb warned Khalife he would face “a long custodial sentence” when he is sentenced in the early part of 2025.
The UK has sanctioned more than 450 Iranian individuals and entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in its entirety, as well as individual commanders.
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