Urgent: UK Sentences Iranian Spy to 14 Years Behind Bars – Beware of the Dangerous Informant!

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A former British Army soldier who embarked on a “fantastical plan” to spy for Iran and subsequently escaped from prison was branded a “dangerous fool” on Monday as he was jailed for 14 years. Daniel Khalife, 23, had described himself as a patriot, and said he had contacted UK security services in an unsuccessful attempt to be a “double agent”.But he was sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court on Monday after a jury found he had been in contact with officials from the Middle Eastern country over a period of two years. Khalife sparked a nationwide manhunt in September 2023 after he broke free from Wandsworth prison under a food delivery truck. He was arrested three days later after police pulled him off a bicycle on a canal towpath. At the time of his escape, Khalife was awaiting trial on spying charges.The court heard Khalife had received two cash payments for passing on military and classified information, although he had faked some of it. Some of the information included a list of names of British special forces personnel.Khalife was convicted in November 2024 of spying and terrorism charges following a trial, during which he had pleaded guilty to escape charges.On Monday, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb passed down a sentence of 14 years and three months saying Khalife was an “attention seeker” who had been motivated by “a selfish desire to show off”.She told Khalife, who joined the British Army shortly before his 17th birthday, that he initially “had the makings of an exemplary soldier” but showed himself “to be, instead, a dangerous fool”.The judge said on Monday that Khalife’s “fantastical plan” demonstrated his “immaturity”.“That you thought it appropriate to consider inserting yourself, an unauthorised, unqualified and uninformed junior soldier into communication with an enemy state is perhaps the clearest indication of the degree of folly,” she told him.Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police’s counter terrorism command, said in a statement that Khalife’s behaviour had been “extremely reckless and dangerous”. His sentence “should serve as a warning to others”, he added.The court was told Khalife, who had aspired to work in military intelligence or be attached to special forces, had contacted MI5 and MI6, saying he wanted to work as a double agent.Gul Nawaz Hussain KC, for Khalife, said the defendant’s pursuits were more akin to cartoon character “Scooby Doo” than James Bond.He told the court that Khalife’s supposed espionage would not go down in the “annals of history” and his activities would hardly “wind up being a lesson for budding spies”. The judge said that while the extent of actual harm done by Khalife could not be ascertained, at least some of his activities had been of “some real use to an enemy”.During the manhunt hundreds of police officers had been called away from their regular duties at an estimated cost of £250,000 in overtime and further costs to the Border Force, Cheema-Grubb added.Khalife was ordered to pay £10,000 as a “small contribution” towards the costs of his prosecution.