Former solider Daniel Khalife, 21, who is accused of passing secrets to Iran wanted to be a double agent for MI6, court hears
A British soldier who allegedly escaped from jail after being accused of passing secrets to Iran ‘wanted to be a double agent’ for MI6, a court heard yesterday.
A British soldier who allegedly escaped from jail after being accused of passing secrets to Iran ‘wanted to be a double agent’ for MI6, a court heard yesterday.
Daniel Khalife, 23, sparked a nationwide manhunt when he allegedly escaped from Wandsworth Prison for a number of days in September 2023 after he was held on spy charges, it was said.
Woolwich Crown Court heard how the aspiring spy was arrested after arranging to meet an Iranian ‘agent’ in a park in Barnet, north London, where he was handed a ‘dog poo bag’ with £1,500.
Khalife is accused of betraying his country by passing secret information from his work in a sensitive corps of the Army to ‘agents of Iran’.
In a ‘cynical kind of game’, Khalife then ‘flirted’ with the idea of becoming a double agent, contacting MI6 in 2019 to say he wanted to work for the service, jurors heard.
Daniel Khalife sparked a nationwide manhunt when he allegedly escaped from Wandsworth Prison for a number of days in September 2023
The 22-year-old had been in jail on terrorism charges after allegedly plotting a fake bomb hoax at his army barracks at MoD Stafford and a charge of passing material to the Iranian Intelligence Services
Prosecutor Mark Heywood, KC, said Khalife had harboured an interest in ‘espionage’ since the age of 17 and joined the British Army, training within a corps providing secure and military-grade communications to further his ambitions.
He embarked on a plan to leak secrets almost as soon as he joined the Royal Corps of Signals, jurors were told.
The defendant, brought up in Kingston, south London, by his Iranian mother, allegedly started searching for intelligence-related material concerning MI5 in 2018.
After passing security, Khalife is said to have made contact with an individual connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). But Khalife later told police it was a ‘double-bluff’ so he could ‘sell himself to the UK security services’.
On August 11, 2019, Khalife is said to have gone to Mill Hill Park where he took a photograph of an envelope inside a dog poo bag.
Khalife joined the army at 16 before going on to serve as a computer network engineer with the Royal Corps of Signals, the British Armys communications arm
Khalifes alleged escape from Wandsworth - which he denies - sparked a nationwide manhunt lasting several days
Days later he allegedly emailed MI6 under a false name claiming he had been paid $2,000 (£1,500) for a ‘fake document’ after being asked to provide the Iranian government with information.
Khalife is said to have written: ‘They first needed me to create trust, so I made a fake document and sent it to them. After 1 week they payed (sic) me 2,000 dollars in a drop-off point in Barnet. The reason why I agreed to do this is because I want to work as a double agent for the security service.’
He allegedly emailed MI6 a second time saying: ‘I believed that I could use this new contact in Iran from the revolutionary guard corps to present myself as a double agent for the UK security services.’
Mr Heywood said that ‘while he did attempt contact with UK security agencies, his real focus was on those of Iran’.
After Khalife was arrested and released on bail, he is said to have absconded from his barracks in January 2023, leaving a ‘bomb-like apparatus’ on his desk.
He is alleged to have later escaped from HMP Wandsworth in south London by strapping himself to the underside of a food delivery lorry on September 6, 2023.
Khalife denies gathering, publishing or communicating information that might be useful to an enemy, namely Iranian intelligence, contrary to the Official Secrets Act.
He also denies eliciting or attempting to elicit personal information about Armed Forces personnel that was likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism from a Ministry of Defence administration system.
He further denies escaping from the prison and perpetrating a bomb hoax.
The trial continues.
