A former British soldier accused of escaping prison by strapping himself to the underside of a delivery truck had contacted Iranian intelligence before offering to work as a “double agent” for MI6, his trial has heard.
Daniel Khalife, 23, is alleged to have contacted a well-known individual connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards in 2019, before picking up an envelope containing £1,500 that was left by his Iranian handlers in a dog poo bag in a park in north London.
Shortly after he passed his security clearance as a soldier, pictures found on his iPhone showed he picked up the bag which was decorated with paws and a bone, with an envelope inside it, and took a selfie.
The court heard that the following day, Khalife, whose mother is from Iran, took steps to get a new passport and later discussed booking a flight to Turkey and a hotel so that he could meet Iranian agents there, “because it needs to look like a holiday”, the jury heard.
Shortly after he picked up the money, the former soldier emailed MI6 via the contact us section of its website to say he wanted to work as a “double agent” for the service and had been given the money in return for sending Iranian intelligence a fake document.
The jury heard he would later tell police that his contact with Iranians was an elaborate “double-bluff” and that he intended to sell himself to the UK security services.
He is accused of collecting secret information and passing it on to “agents of Iran”. At the opening of the trial at Woolwich crown court, the prosecutor Mark Heywood KC told the jury that Khalife had actively pursued a relationship with Iranian intelligence.
“His aim in doing so was clearly to offer himself as an asset to Iran’s external security apparatus,” Heywood said. “The prosecution case is that he began a process of obtaining, recording and communicating material, information of a kind that might be or was intended to be useful to an enemy of the UK.
“It will be for you to say whether his motives were simply mixed or whether he was playing a cynical kind of game,” he told jurors.
Khalife was born and brought up in Kingston, south-west London. In September 2018, he joined the British army as a junior soldier at the age of 16 and completed a 23-week course. Shortly afterwards, he may have begun to think about espionage, the court heard, and in 2019 he joined the Royal corps of Signals, which provides communications, IT and cyber support.
After completing a year-long course and specialist training, he underwent and passed security clearance, giving him access to secret information, the trial heard. He was then posted to the 16th Signal Regiment in Stafford.
After he was arrested and released on bail, Khalife absconded from his barracks, leaving canisters and wires on his desk intended to look like an explosive device, jurors were told.
He is alleged to have later escaped from HMP Wandsworth in south London while on remand on terror and espionage charges by strapping himself to the underside of a food delivery lorry on 6 September 2023.
Khalife faces a charge of gathering, publishing or communicating information that might be useful to an enemy, namely Iranian intelligence, contrary to the Official Secrets Act between 1 May 2019 and January 6 2022.
He is also alleged to have elicited or attempted 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 on 2 August 2021.
He denies all of the charges and the trial continues.