British ex-soldier who escaped from prison found guilty of aiding Iran on terrorism charges

LONDON – A British soldier was found guilty on Thursday of collecting sensitive information about individuals affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and collecting the names of special forces personnel.

Daniel Abed Khalife collected sensitive information between May 2019 and January 2022, prosecutor Mark Heywood told jurors at the start of the trial at Woolwich Crown Court.

Khalifa, who was discharged from the armed forces following the accusation against him, was also accused of leaving a fake bomb on his desk before escaping from his barracks in January 2023.

He then escaped from London’s Wandsworth prison in September 2023 while awaiting trial on other charges, strapping himself to the underside of a delivery van and sparking a brief nationwide manhunt.

The 23-year-old man was tried on charges of collecting information that would be useful to an enemy such as Iran, obtaining information that could be useful for terrorism, and bomb fraud, which are crimes under the Official Secrets Act.

He denied all the charges, pleaded guilty in his statement that he had escaped from prison, and said he wanted to be a “double agent” for British intelligence services.

The Caliph said that he was a patriot and that he and his family hated the Iranian government. “Me and my family are against the regime in Iran,” he told the jury.

Khalife was found guilty of charges under the Official Secrets Act and the Terrorism Act by a jury after more than 23 hours of deliberation. He was found not guilty of bomb fraud.

‘WALTER MITTY CHARACTER’

Prosecutors said Khalife received about 1,500 pounds ($2,000) on the instructions of his handler in 2019 and two weeks later sent an anonymous email to Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence service asking to “work as a double agent”.

Khalife, who joined the army shortly before his 17th birthday, almost immediately began “having thoughts of espionage”, Heywood told the jury.

But Khalife said he was a patriot and was “devastated” when told that his Iranian heritage meant he was unlikely to be given permission to work in intelligence.

He also said that the documents he forwarded to his Iranian ruler were useless because they were either publicly available or prepared by the Caliph himself.

Police described Khalifa as fantasist and amateur, but said he had a serious negative impact on British interests.

“I think he’s the ultimate Walter Mitty character,” said Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, referring to a fictional character who dreams of fantasy.

“The problem is that he’s a Walter Mitty character who has an extremely significant impact in the real world.” REUTERS