He was the amateur spy who blew his own cover and whose own lawyer described as ‘hapless’, bearing more resemblance to Scooby Doo than James Bond.

Now, former soldier Daniel Khalife has been jailed for 14 years and three months for spying for Iran and escaping from prison by clinging to the bottom of a food truck.

The 23-year-old, who claimed to be on a one-man ‘double agent’ mission but was labelled an ‘attention seeker’ by a judge this afternoon, was sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court in London and ordered to pay £10,000 towards prosecution costs.

Judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said Khalife – who was ignored when he contacted MI6 and MI5 in his attempts to become a double agent – had been motivated by ‘a selfish desire to show off’ and described him as ‘a dangerous fool’. 

Khalife was in the British Army when he ‘exposed military personnel to serious harm’ by collecting sensitive information and passing it to agents of Iran. He was paid in cash and told handlers he would stay in the military for 25-plus years for them.

In September 2023, Khalife escaped from category B prison HMP Wandsworth in South West London by clinging to the underside of a food delivery truck. He was caught on a canal towpath by a plainclothes detective days later after a major search.

Prosecutors in his trial said Khalife played ‘a cynical game’, claiming he wanted a career as a double agent to help the British intelligence services, when in fact he gathered ‘a very large body of restricted and classified material’.

Khalife was sentenced to six years for committing an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state, and another six years – consisting of five years in prison and one on licence – for eliciting information about members of the armed forces. The judge also passed a sentence of two years and three months for the jail break.

Last November, jurors at Woolwich Crown Court found that Khalife had breached the Official Secrets Act and the Terrorism Act. He was cleared of carrying out a bomb hoax and had already admitted during his trial to escaping from Wandsworth prison.

Today’s sentencing hearing was delayed this morning because Khalife was ‘for some reason stuck in the tunnel that leads from Belmarsh (Prison) to this court for one hour and 20 minutes’, according to his defence barrister Gul Nawaz Hussain KC.

Former soldier Daniel Khalife has been sentenced for spying for Iran and escaping from prison 

Daniel Khalife is pictured after his arrest on a canal towpath in London on September 9, 2023

The sling which was under the truck used in the prison escape of Daniel Khalife in London

A screengrab taken from bodycam footage on September 9, 2023 when Daniel Khalife was arrested at Grand Union Canal towpath near Rowdell Road in Northolt, West London

Tthe chef’s clothing and footwear that Daniel Khalife was wearing following his jail escape

Khalife sat in the dock wearing a dark crew neck jumper and a pair of chinos.

The judge told him: ‘You passed information you had gathered to an enemy state’, including when he was working in an international operation in America.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said Khalife had been paid by Iran after sending communications via Telegram.

The judge said it was ‘not surprising’ that Khalife’s emails to MI6 offering to be a ‘double agent’ failed because he had not informed MI6 or MI5 that he was in a sensitive military role when he contacted them.

‘The security services must receive many nuisance emails,’ the judge said.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb added that Khalife had taken photographs of secret information including passwords and recorded details from the Falcon encrypted military communications system.

‘I am sure that you sent some of what you recorded about Falcon to your handlers’, she told him.

The judge said Khalife had also obtained secret information about special forces soldiers adding: ‘I am driven to the conclusion that the making of that list was also to send to the Iranians.’

In addition, the judge said she could not be sure whether Khalife’s fabricated intelligence file about British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sent to the Iranians, but it would have been detrimental to efforts to secure her release.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb noted that Khalife had ‘boasted’ of his intelligence to his handlers, but she told him: ‘The limits of your claimed intelligence are apparent.’

The judge said: ‘In my judgement you did not start out intentionally to harm the interests of the United Kingdom’.’

But she said he acted ‘because of a selfish desire to show off’. She told Khalife that his ‘dangerous and fantastical plan demonstrates your immaturity.’

The judge described his ‘degree of folly in the failure to understand at the most obvious level the risk’ he posed to special forces soldiers.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said Khalife would have been a ‘blackmail risk’ had he continued to serve in the British Army.

The judge said she had concluded: ‘The level of harm is of a moderate to high degree.’

‘Your conduct was premeditated and continued for years,’ she told the defendant. ‘You continued in contact with your handlers even after your arrest.’

She said the secret information he had compiled would have been highly valuable to a terrorist.

The judge said she did not accept that Khalife was forced to escape from prison as he feared he would be attacked.

‘You did because you thought you could,’ she said.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb referred to Khalife’s immaturity, saying she was dealing with someone who, ‘for all their bravado’, is still a ‘little distance’ from adulthood.

The judge said Khalife had a ‘sense of entitlement, an expectation of special treatment’.

Khalife has been diagnosed with both antisocial and narcissistic personality disorder, but Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said this did not offer any mitigation.

She said: ‘You are an attention seeker, and you enjoyed the notoriety you attracted following your escape from prison.’

The judge told the court she did not believe Khalife had been honest about the full extent of the information he had passed to Iran, keeping only an incomplete record in case he was caught.

In prison, Khalife told experts that he never wanted to be ‘just a number’.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said she accepted Khalife did not act for financial gain.

She told Khalife: ‘When you joined the Army as a young man, you had the makings of an exemplary soldier.

‘However, through the repeated violation of your oath of service, you showed yourself to be, instead, a dangerous fool.’

Earlier during today’s hearing, prosecutor Mark Heywood KC said the maximum sentence for Khalife’s offending is 15 years.

He suggested the court should consider the risk that people in very sensitive roles had been identified after Khalife obtained the names of SAS soldiers.

The court also heard the case has cost the Crown Prosecution more than £134,000. Mr Heywood said the court could consider a deprivation order, adding that Khalife had stockpiled over £14,000 in cash before he escaped.

The policing operation to find him cost £250,000, mostly from overtime payments, the court heard. 

In addition, Mr Heywood said Khalife ‘damaged public confidence’ when he escaped from HMP Wandsworth, adding: ‘The reaction of the authorities is indicative of the level of public concern.’ 

Mr Hussain meanwhile said Khalife’s spy attempts were somewhere between ‘007 and Scooby Doo’, adding: ‘What Daniel Khalife clearly chose to do was not born of malice, was not born of greed, religious fervour or ideological conviction. His intentions were neither sinister nor cynical.’

He described his spying as ‘opportunistic’ saying some of the files he compiled were ‘laughably fake documents.’

Mr Hussain told the judge that Khalife’s actions were ‘not efficient or highly organised’.

‘He joined the army at 15 and this offending occurred between the ages of 17 and 20. As youngsters age their capacity to appreciate the consequences of their actions increase immeasurably,’ he told the court.

He said the defendant had ‘a sense of unswerving self-belief and gross overestimation of ability’.

Mr Hussain added: ‘We say it was offending that was born of professional disappointment, a desire to demonstrate genuine utility and that led him to a grossly naive, rose-tinted view of patriotism.’ 

Mr Hussain said Khalife did not spy for Iran for ‘financial gain’ and suggested that what he actually provided was not highly classified material.

‘There is no clear evidence of him sending secret documents to the Iranians,’ he said.

‘There is an important distinction to be drawn between actual and potential harm. We believe the court should proceed on the basis that there is no actual harm.’

Mr Hussain said there was no evidence that Khalife’s made-up letter in 2021 about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – titled titled ‘Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe intelligence options’ – was ever sent.

The British-Iranian mother was detained in Iran in 2016, before returning to the UK only in 2021. 

An asterisk next to the date of September 6 in Daniel Khalife’s prison diary, the date of his escape

A court artist’s drawing of Khalife appearing at Woolwich Crown Court on October 30, 2024

Signs on the door of a secure area at Beacon Barracks, where Khalife had been staying

A photo of Khalife’s passport stamped with return date from Turkey, which was shown to the jury

An image taken on October 24, 2021 of a Mausoleum in Kensall Green where Daniel Khalife is alleged to have collected a drop

Daniel Khalife at a branch of Sainsbury’s on King Street in Hammersmith on September 7, 2023

Daniel Khalife, pictured on October 21, 2021

The bike and bag at the scene at Grand Union Canal towpath near Rowdell Road in Northolt, West London, where Daniel Khalife was arrested

Mr Hussain said Khalife’s spying activities will not go down in the ‘annals of history’, adding: ‘There’s no way that what Mr Khalife did is going to wind up being a lesson for budding spies.’

His barrister also said Khalife only passed imprecise information, and suggested that no actual damage had been caused.

Mr Hussain said of Khalife’s research into SAS soldiers: ‘There is nothing to suggest he forwarded the full spreadsheet to his handlers.’

His actions uncovered a significant flaw in Ministry of Defence systems and have ‘ultimately resulted in positive action between taken’ to resolve this, Mr Hussain added.

He told the court that Khalife’s escape from Wandsworth exposed ‘horrific failings’ within the prison system which are now being addressed.

Mr Hussain said his escape attempt using carabiners and a sling was not sophisticated, adding: ‘It’s basic.’

He suggested his client had escaped as he was fearful of being transferred from Wandsworth category B prison to a category A jail, Belmarsh Prison.

According to probation reports, Khalife now accepts his escape plan was ‘naïve’, he is remorseful and ‘regrets his decision and the selfishness he demonstrated’, the court heard.

Mr Hussain said Khalife was sad he had lost his ‘vocation’ and he was determined to pursue ‘positive avenues’ and educational opportunities while serving his sentence.

The court heard that Khalife was ‘uncomfortable’ about the notoriety he has achieved.

While behind bars, Khalife told probation staff: ‘It takes a lot to make me sad now, I am not going to let what happened define me.’

Previously, police described Khalife as the ‘ultimate Walter Mitty character that was having a significant impact on the real world’.

Khalife created and passed on fake documents supposedly from MPs, senior military officials and the security services, but also sent genuine army documents.

Having approached a ‘middle-man’ by sending him a Facebook message, Khalife told the Iranians he would stay undercover in the British Army for ’25-plus years’ for them.

He joined the British Army in 2018, two weeks before his 17th birthday, and served with the Royal Corps of Signals.

In 2021, Khalife secretly gathered the names of serving soldiers, including those in the special forces.

He took a photo of a handwritten list of 15 of them, having been sent an internal spreadsheet of promotions in June 2021.

Prosecutors believe he sent the list to Iran before deleting any evidence.

Daniel Khalife at a branch of Marks and Spencer’s in Kew, West London, on September 7, 2023

A photo of a blue cap found with Khalife when he was arrested, which was shown to the jury

The exterior of the apartment block to Daniel Khalife’s accomodation at MoD Stafford

An image of a hoax device which was shown to the jury during the trial of Daniel Khalife

Daniel Khalife at a branch of McDonalds on Uxbridge Road in Southall, West London, on September 9, 2023

Daniel Khalife in his hotel room in Istanbul, in a picture shown to the jury his during his trial

The bag at the scene at Grand Union Canal towpath near Rowdell Road in Northolt, West London

An asterisk and the word ‘failed’ next to the date of August 21 in Daniel Khalife’s prison diary, the date of his ‘fake’ escape attempt

After his arrest, he told police he had wanted to offer himself to UK security agencies all along, having emailed MI6 as early as 2019.

Khalife told jurors he wanted to prove bosses wrong after being told his Iranian heritage could stop him working in military intelligence, and came up with his elaborate double agent plot after watching the TV spy thriller Homeland.

In November 2021, he made an anonymous call to the MI5 public reporting line, confessing to being in contact with Iran for more than two years.

He offered to help the British security services, and said he wanted to return to his normal life.

If Khalife had not contacted MI5 to tell them about his contact with Iran, neither they nor the police would ever have known, his barrister told the court.

Gul Nawaz Hussain KC, defending, said the double agent plot was ‘hapless’ and ‘sometimes bordering on the slapstick’, more ‘Scooby-Doo’ than James Bond or Homeland.

Prosecutors said Khalife prepared a bomb hoax at his Staffordshire barracks in January 2023.

But the trial heard how a soldier who arrived in the room pulled wires out of the device to prove it was not real.

A bomb disposal unit was only called after police attended and looked at the device several days later.

In September 2023, he escaped from the category B prison HMP Wandsworth, in south-west London, by clinging to the underside of a food delivery truck.

Five days before his successful escape, he attached a sling to the underside of a lorry made from kitchen trousers and carabiners.

As the driver of the Mercedes truck, Balazs Werner, was leaving the prison, two guards checked the vehicle with a ‘torch and mirror’, and told him someone was missing from the prison.

When the guards said he could drive off, he was surprised the prison was not in lockdown, and said ‘are you sure?’ but was allowed to drive out through the prison gates.

While on the run, Khalife bought clothes from Marks & Spencer and a coffee from McDonald’s, and walked beside the River Thames.

He made one last attempt to contact the Iranians before he was caught, sending a Telegram message which said simply: ‘I wait.’

Concern that he would try a similar stunt during his trial was so high that during his evidence, he was taken to and from the witness box in handcuffs.

Khalife told his trial he escaped in the hope he would be kept in a segregated high-security unit at HMP Belmarsh, away from ‘sex offenders’ and ‘terrorists’ after his recapture.

Khalife was brought up with his twin sister in Kingston, South West London, by his mother, who came from Iran.

He had limited contact with his Lebanese father, whom he said was ‘not a good man’ and would ‘pop in and out, do some damage and then leave’.

Khalife told the jury that friendships he formed at Teddington School were ‘in essence, fake’ and that his mother was ‘very, very strict’, suggesting that her upbringing in Iran had left her paranoid.

After a teenage dalliance with shoplifting – Khalife realised during a science lesson in school that powerful magnets could be used to remove security tags – his mother decided to take him to Iran for the first time.

Travelling there for a month at the age of 15, he claimed he hated the country and that the trip to the capital, Tehran, made him appreciate all he had in the UK.

Khalife told the jury he was not academic and did not like school – but that he had ultimately passed 10 GCSEs.

As a child he was fascinated by planes, but did not pursue an early dream of becoming a pilot because he was afraid of heights, he joked.

Instead he was inspired by the sight of the Household Cavalry Barracks in Hyde Park, which he thought was ‘amazing’.

In September 2018, two weeks before his 17th birthday, he joined the British Army, completing his basic 23-week military training at the Army Foundation College, at Harrogate, Yorkshire, finishing in February 2019.

Joining up gave him his first chance to experience freedom and get away from home, he said, calling himself an English patriot who was proud to serve his country.

The 6ft 2in recruit decided to join the Royal Corps of Signals, a specialist unit which provides communications, IT and cyber support to the army.

In March 2019, Khalife – holding the lowest rank of signaller – moved on to his specialist Phase 2 training at the Defence School of Communication and Information Systems at Blandford Forum in Dorset.

He underwent and passed security clearance, giving him access to secret, or even above, sensitive information.

Around this time, he claimed during his trial, a troop commander warned him that his Iranian heritage could stop him being able to work in military intelligence.

So, at the age of just 17, Khalife said he decided to prove his bosses wrong and made his first contact with Iran in the hope of eventually working as a double agent.

The sling under the truck used in the prison escape of Daniel Khalife

Messages on a phone screen between Daniel Khalife and ‘David Smith’, which was shown to the jury his during his trial

A court artist’s sketch of Daniel Khalife at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on September 11, 2023

Daniel Khalife at a branch of McDonalds on Uxbridge Road in Southall, West London, on September 9, 2023 

The soldier completed his year-long specialist training in early 2020, and was posted to the 16th Signal Regiment in Stafford.

He was sent to the US for a short stint in 2021, posted to Fort Cavazos (then called Fort Hood) in Texas from February to April that year.

All the while he remained in contact with his Iranian handlers.

Khalife claimed that he wanted to flush out Iranian spies working in the UK, but did not manage to gather any evidence against them.

‘I was thinking I could be James Bond or something, like an idiot,’ he told his trial.

Khalife created and passed on fake documents purporting to be from MPs, senior military officials and the security services, but also sent genuine army doctrine notes.

Jurors also heard how he covertly gathered the forenames of service personnel, including those in special forces, by logging on to an internal HR system for booking leave.

Messages showed he told his Iranian handlers he would stay in the military for 25-plus years, stealing information to order, while he also contacted MI5 and MI6 to tout his services.

Ultimately the offer was not taken up – MI5 reported him to police and he was arrested in January 2022.

A year later, he realised he was facing serious criminal charges and fled his barracks.

He spent the next three weeks ‘trying not to freeze to death’ while living in a van in a nearby town using number plates from another vehicle, both of which he had stolen from the barracks.

Mr Hussain said improper use of WhatsApp was ‘rife’ at the 16th Signal Regiment in Stafford.

Soldiers, including Khalife’s superiors, sent training manuals, door codes and even photos of their secure computer screens using personal phones, from secure areas.

Khalife was a member of a group chat called ‘Fabulous Falcon F***tards’ – a reference to the Army’s Falcon communications system on which they worked.

The signaller was never told he was doing anything wrong by using WhatsApp.

Giving evidence, a senior army intelligence officer named only as Soldier A, said the messaging service is not considered a safe form of communication by the military.

An experienced Army IT expert agreed, and told jurors it was troubling to hear that sensitive information had been sent on WhatsApp.

The trial was shown a Ministry of Defence directive telling soldiers not to use WhatsApp for any ‘official business’, but nobody within Khalife’s unit was ever disciplined over the problem.

In June 2021, an internal spreadsheet of soldier promotions was sent to a group chat called Brew Room Boys, of which Khalife was a member.

He took details from the spreadsheet before logging on to an internal HR system for booking leave, to try to find out the soldiers’ first names.

The list of soldiers, including some serving in the Special Air Service and Special Boat Service, was sent out by mistake and was also leaked to the press.

‘Leaks aren’t all that uncommon in the military,’ Mr Hussain said.

In November 2021, Khalife made an anonymous call to the MI5 public reporting line, confessing to being in contact with Iran for more than two years.

He offered to help the British security services, and said he wanted to return to his normal life.

If Khalife had not contacted MI5 to tell them about his contact with Iran, neither they nor the police would ever have known, his barrister told the court.

The signaller sent an email to MI6 as early as August 2019 about his scheme, but never received a response.

MI5 made nine attempts to return his calls, but were not able to reach him.

The sling which was under the truck used in the prison escape of Daniel Khalife

Daniel Khalife’s room at MoD Stafford, in a picture shown to the jury during his trial

The scene at Grand Union Canal towpath near Rowdell Road in Northolt, West London, where Daniel Khalife was arrested

A handwritten note, which was shown to the jury during the trial of Daniel Khalife

File photo dated 10/09/23 of HMP Wandsworth in London

The sling which was under the truck used in the prison escape of Daniel Khalife

Daniel Khalife at Mill Hill Park

Aasterisk and the word ‘failed’ next to the date of August 21 in Daniel Khalife’s prison diary, the date of his ‘fake’ escape attempt

The security agency reported him the following month, and he was arrested in January 2022.

Police were not aware of his activities before MI5’s approach.

In January 2023, having been bailed by police, Khalife fled his barracks.

Before being caught, he spent three weeks living in a stolen van just five miles away from the barracks, but the vehicle, which contained important evidence, would not be found by police for another eight months.

A national manhunt was launched for the former soldier when he managed to escape from HMP Wandsworth in September 2023.

Five days before his successful escape, he attached a sling to the underside of a lorry made from kitchen trousers and carabiners.

The driver of the Mercedes truck involved, Balazs Werner, said he noticed ‘both kitchen doors were open’ during his delivery to the site on the day of the escape, which he thought was ‘unusual’.

As he was leaving the prison, two guards checked the vehicle with a ‘torch and mirror’, and told him someone was missing from the prison.

When the guards said he could drive off, he was surprised the prison was not in lockdown, and said ‘are you sure?’ but was allowed to drive out through the prison gates.

Reacting to the sentencing today, Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Met Police Counter Terrorism Command, said: ‘The threat to the UK from states such as Iran is very serious, so for a soldier in the Army to be sharing sensitive military material and information with them is extremely reckless and dangerous.

‘I’d like to reiterate my praise to all those who worked on this investigation – those who looked into Khalife’s activity in sharing information with the Iranians, but also the many colleagues from agencies and police forces who assisted us after his escape from prison.

‘It was thanks to a combination of fantastic support from the public, along with some brilliant police work, that we were able to find and arrest Khalife after his escape, and make sure he faced justice.

‘This outcome and sentence should serve as a warning to others that the illegal sharing of information in this way will be treated extremely seriously by security services and police, and we will use the full force of the law against those who put the UK’s security at risk.’