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Watch: Ex-soldier Daniel Khalife sentenced for prison escape and spying for Iran

Holly Patrick
Monday 03 February 2025 15:39 GMT

Watch as former soldier Daniel Khalife was sentenced on Monday, 3 February, for spying for Iran and escaping from prison.

Jurors at Woolwich Crown Court found in November last year 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 fleeing Wandsworth Prison. He was sentenced to 14 years and three months imprisonment at the same court on Monday.

The 23-year-old was serving in the British Army when he “exposed military personnel to serious harm” by collecting sensitive information and passing it to agents of the Middle Eastern country.

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

Khalife was paid in cash for secret information and told handlers he would stay in the military for 25-plus years for them.

He escaped south-west London’s HMP Wandsworth, a category B prison, in September 2023 by clinging to the underside of a food delivery truck before being caught on a canal towpath by a plainclothes detective days later.

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