Former British soldier Daniel Khalife convicted of spying for Iran

The 23-year-old, who escaped from jail in London, passed on classified material including the names of special forces soldiers

A former soldier in the British army who escaped from prison while awaiting trial has been found guilty of spying for Iran.

Daniel Khalife, 23, was on Thursday convicted of delivering a large amount of restricted and classified material for people linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including the names of special forces officers.

Khalife, wearing a blue shirt and pale trousers, calmly replaced his glasses as the verdicts were read out and did not show any emotion.

He escaped from Wandsworth Prison in London in September 2023 while awaiting trial by tying himself to the undercarriage of a delivery van, leading to a brief nationwide manhunt.

In 2021, Khalife took a photo of a handwritten list of 15 serving British soldiers, including some in the special forces, having been sent an internal spreadsheet of promotions in June of that year. Prosecutors believe he sent the list to Iran before deleting any evidence.

Khalife pleaded guilty to escaping from prison and said he wanted to be a "double agent" for the British intelligence services, though he denied the other charges against him.

The former soldier told Woolwich Crown Court in London that he had been in touch with members of the Iranian government as part of a ploy to ultimately work as a double agent for Britain, a scheme he said he had devised from watching the TV series Homeland.

Having reached out to a "middleman" by sending him a Facebook message, Khalife told an Iranian who he saved as David Smith in his phone that he would work 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, a specialist unit that provides communications, IT and cyber support to the army.

During his trial it emerged Khalife was sent training manuals, door codes and even photos of secure computer screens using personal phones, from secure areas via WhatsApp. He worked at a base in central England, which is home to some of the UK's sensitive military communications covering global operations.

Giving evidence, a senior army intelligence officer named in court as Soldier A, said the messaging service is not considered a safe form of communication by the military.

An experienced army IT expert agreed, telling jurors it was troubling to hear that sensitive information had been sent on WhatsApp. The signaller was, however, never told he was doing anything wrong by using WhatsApp.

Khalife told jurors he wanted to prove his bosses wrong after being told his Iranian heritage could prevent him from working in military intelligence and came up with his elaborate double agent plot after watching the TV spy thriller Homeland.

Khalife's lawyer, Gul Nawaz Hussain KC, described the scheme as "hapless" and "sometimes bordering on the slapstick", more "Scooby-Doo" than James Bond or Homeland.

In November 2021, Khalife made an anonymous call to the UK's MI5 internal security service 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. MI5 made nine attempts to return his calls but were unable to reach him.

If Khalife had not contacted MI5 to tell them about his contact with Iran, neither intelligence services nor the police would ever have known, Mr Hussain told the court.

The signaller also sent an email to MI6, the UK's overseas intelligence service, as early as August 2019 about his scheme but never received a response.

Police described Khalife as the "ultimate Walter Mitty character that was having a significant impact on the real world", while his mother said her son "does not live in reality".

Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command, said of Khalife: "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.

"The threat to the UK from states such as Iran is very serious, so for a soldier in the army to be sharing sensitive military material and information with them is extremely reckless and dangerous."

In September 2023, Khalife escaped from HMP Wandsworth in south-west London by clinging to the underside of a food delivery lorry.

At the time there were concerns among security services and police that he might try to flee to Iran or make it to the Iranian embassy in west London. He was eventually captured after being spotted riding a stolen mountain bike along the canal towpath in Northolt, west London, about 14 miles from the prison.

He had made one last attempt to contact the Iranians before he was found, sending a Telegram message which said simply: "I wait."

Concern he would try a similar stunt during his trial was so high that during his evidence he was brought to and from the witness box in handcuffs.

Jurors found Khalife guilty of breaching the Official Secrets Act and Terrorism Act but acquitted him of perpetrating a bomb hoax. He will be sentenced at a later date.