British soldier Daniel Khalife sentenced to 14 years for spying for Iran and prison break

A British soldier turned traitor who escaped from prison by clinging to the bottom of a food truck has been jailed for 14 years and three months after being convicted of spying for Iran.

Daniel Khalife, 23, 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 the traitor deleted it all before being arrested.

Khalife provoked a nationwide manhunt after escaping HMP Wandsworth – where he was being held on remand for spying – and going on the run for three days in September last year.

Twelve years are for spying, and two years and three months are for breaking out of prison. Judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb also ordered him to pay £10,000 to help towards the costs of the trial.

Last November he was convicted by a jury of three charges linked to two years he spent passing sensitive information to Iran.

Jurors rejected Khalife’s lies that 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.

Even Khalife’s own lawyer accepted the “hapless” operation bore more resemblance to Scooby Doo than James Bond.

Sentencing Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told the traitor it was a “shame” that the former soldier had spent two years in contact with agents of Iran after joining the army at a commendably young age.

She added: “The mere fact that you started on this dangerous and fantastical plan demonstrates your immaturity and lack of wisdom, that you thought it was appropriate to insert yourself – an unauthorised, unqualified and uninformed junior soldier into communication with an enemy state is perhaps the clearest indication of the degree of folly in your failure to understand at the most obvious level the risk you posed.”

She told him he would have been a blackmail risk for his whole career had he not been caught.

He contacted MI6 and MI5 in his attempts to become a double agent, but was ignored.

“The greater mischief in your offending is that, having failed to engage any response from the intelligence services of the United Kingdom, you continued betraying your country and exposed others to the possibility of harm,” the judge said.

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.

The trial at Woolwich Crown Court 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.

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.

“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.

Bethan David, Head of the Counter Terrorism Division at 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.