Former British soldier jailed for collecting information for Iran

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - A British soldier was sentenced to more than 14 years in jail for collecting sensitive information for Iran and gathering the names of special forces personnel before briefly escaping from prison while awaiting trial.

Daniel Abed Khalife was convicted last November of gathering military and classified information for Iran between 2019 and 2022, and obtaining information likely to be useful for terrorism.

Khalife, who was discharged from the armed forces after he was charged, also admitted escaping from London's Wandsworth prison in September 2023 while awaiting trial for the other charges. He tied himself to the bottom of a delivery van, sparking a nationwide manhunt before he was caught days later.

The 23-year-old, whose mother was born in Iran, had said he was a patriot and had contacted both Britain's MI6 and MI5 intelligence services about his contacts, saying he wanted be a "double agent". He had said he and his family hated the Iranian government.

But Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb told him he had embarked on his "dangerous and fantastical" plan out of a "selfish desire to show off".

She jailed him at London's Woolwich Crown Court for 14 years and three months, saying he had shown the makings of an exemplary soldier but had become a "dangerous fool".

IRAN CONTACTS

The ex-soldier had contacted Iranian officials and then had substantial involvement with several agents linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during a two-year period, receiving two payments in return, prosecutors said.

Khalife, who joined the army shortly before his 17th birthday, also collected details of "individuals in the Special Air Service and the Special Boat Service - and, most conspicuously, Soldier TT, who was in E Squadron, a particularly secretive unit", the prosecution said.

Having escaped from prison, prosecutors said more than 150 officers were involved in the nationwide manhunt, at a cost of more than 250,000 pounds ($309,000) in police overtime.

Khalife argued the documents he passed to his Iranian handler were useless, being either publicly available, or ones he created himself.

His lawyer Gul Nawaz Hussain, who drew a contrast between "007 and Scooby Doo" in terms of Khalife's ability and actions, said that he was not driven by malice, greed, religious fervour or ideological conviction.

"Had he been a genuine spy he would not have behaved as he did," Hussain said.

($1 = 0.8087 pounds)

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)