Daniel Khalife, a former British Army soldier, was convicted of spying for Iran and escaping from prison in a dramatic series of events that captured national attention. Born in London to a British-Iranian mother and British-Lebanese father, Khalife had a troubled early life marked by petty theft and a desire to prove himself.
At 16, Khalife joined the Army, where he quickly developed a reputation for cockiness and attention-seeking behavior. His dreams of joining Special Forces were dashed when he was denied high security clearance due to his Iranian heritage. This rejection seemed to fuel his subsequent actions.
Shortly after joining the Army, Khalife began communicating with Iranian contacts, including Hamed Ghashghavi, a man sanctioned by the USA for recruiting spies. He made amateurish mock-up documents to gain their trust and was soon collecting money from “dead drops” in London. In August 2020, he traveled to Istanbul, allegedly delivering a package to Iranian handlers.
During his military service, Khalife accumulated numerous classified photographs of military communications equipment. He accumulated pictures of Special Forces soldiers by exploiting a flaw in the Army’s holiday-booking system. He even attempted to contact British intelligence agencies, including MI6 and MI5, offering to be a double agent, but was ignored.
In January 2022, Khalife was arrested for his espionage activities. After his arrest, he absconded on 2 January 2023, leaving a fake bomb on his desk to distract authorities. When re-arrested on 26 January, he was found living in a van just seven miles from his barracks, with £18,000 in cash.
His most infamous act came on 6 September 2023, when he escaped from HMP Wandsworth by hiding underneath a food delivery truck. Using kitchen trousers and metal clips, he secured himself to the truck’s underside and was spotted casually walking away after dropping from the vehicle.
During his three-day escape, Khalife wandered around west London, sleeping rough and occasionally interacting with unsuspecting members of the public. He was eventually arrested on a canal towpath in Northolt after 75 hours on the run.
At his trial, Khalife was convicted of breaching the Official Secrets Act and the Terrorism Act. His lawyer portrayed him as a hapless amateur, more like a Scooby-Doo character than a sophisticated spy. However, counter-terrorism detectives acknowledged that while he was largely a fantasist, he had potentially provided sensitive British Army secrets to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Commander Dominic Murphy described Khalife as a “Walter Mitty character” who was causing real-world damage. The jury ultimately decided that Khalife had indeed passed military secrets to Iran, despite his seemingly amateurish approach.
