Daniel Khalife jailed for spying for Iran and prison escape

Khalife began to foster a relationship with Tehran shortly after he was employed by the British Army as a teenager in September 2018.

He used Facebook to contact a man with links to Iranian intelligence, and from there built a relationship with various contacts from Iran.

By August 2019, having been in the Army for less than a year, he was sent to collect $2,000 (£1,600) in a dog poo bag in Mill Hill Park, north London.

Khalife also travelled to Turkey in August 2020, where he left a package for Iranian intelligence agents.

During his trial, the court heard Khalife had anonymously contacted MI6 twice offering to work as a double agent for them.

Following the calls, police launched an investigation into him in November 2021. He was arrested in January 2022, and charged one year later.

He escaped from Wandsworth prison later in 2023 while awaiting trial, only to be found and arrested after three days.

Prosecutors said Khalife had been “entrusted to uphold and protect the national security of this country”, but had instead “used his employment to undermine” it.

However, Khalife’s lawyer claimed twice during the trial that this plot was “hapless” and more “Scooby-Doo” than “007”.

In her sentencing remarks, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said: “What a shame shortly after basic training you spent more than two years in contact with agents of Iran, a country whose interests do not align with UK”.

She added that by the time Khalife had initiated a relationship with Iran, he had been vetted and cleared and thereby had access to a “sea of sensitive material”.

“The duty of confidentiality you owed would have been drilled into you,” she added.

The judge said it was not possible to know the details of all the information Khalife had passed on to his handlers.

The court also heard a number of mitigating factors, including Khalife’s age and a psychological report from 2023 diagnosing him with Antisocial Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder.