British soldier tells trial he was caught after ringing MI5 on himself

British soldier Daniel Khalife has told a court he would never have been caught if he did not ring MI5 on himself.

The 23-year-old pleaded guilty this week to escaping prison, but continues to deny allegations that he was a spy for Iran while working in the Army.

He instead insists that he was an amateur ‘double agent’ trying to prove his spycraft to MI6, after being told his Iranian heritage would stop him getting his dream job in intelligence.

Over the course of two years, he passed Iranian spies a host of fake documents he had written on his laptop - and even collected payments from them in a dog poo bag left in a London park.

Prosecutors allege he also passed the Iranians classified documents and had gathered a list of British soldiers from elite units which could have been useful to terror groups.

Khalife was arrested in January 2022, just weeks after he rang MI5 and explained the supposed undercover operation he had mounted against the Iranians.

During his evidence at Woolwich Crown Court, Gul Nawaz Hussain KC, defending, asked Khalife: ‘If you hadn’t contacted the intelligence services, do you believe anybody would have found out about what you were doing?’ 

Khalife replied: ‘If there wasn’t any contact, in my belief then no.’ In his evidence, Khalife claimed he thought MI6 and MI5 would be ‘impressed’ by his efforts to smoke out Iranian spies on British soil and the security services would want to take over his operation.

 He said that his mother’s side of the family, who are originally from Iran, hated the regime following the Islamic revolution in the country in 1979.

In police interviews, he described his ambitions to help overthrow the regime by working as a double agent inside the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC).

He told police: ‘I’ve always dreamed that the revolution never happened. Iran is such a beautiful country with beautiful people, but the government is a f****** joke.

‘It almost brings tears to my eyes. I’m not even joking, I hate it so much, I hate all of them - I hate the IRGC, I hate the revolution, I wish we could go back to 1979 and have the Shah back.

‘It might be immature, a bit crazy the way that I’m thinking, but I thought I could make a difference.’ Earlier this week, Khalife dramatically changed his plea midway through his trial to admit escaping from prison. 

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He triggered a huge nationwide manhunt last year after slipping out of HMP Wandsworth while clinging to the bottom of a food truck.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb explained to jurors that Khalife was being asked if he wanted to enter a new plea because the evidence he had given about his escape was ‘not any lawful defence to that charge’.

The change of plea came after the former soldier spent several hours in the witness box describing how he had escaped prison, claiming it was a ploy to be moved to a cell away from sex offenders and terrorists when he was recaptured.

He continues to deny committing an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state, eliciting information about members of the armed forces and perpetrating a bomb hoax.