Daniel Abed Khalife, who joined military at 16, claimed he was impressed by TV present Homeland to work as double agent.
A former British soldier has been convicted of passing on delicate data to individuals related with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
On Thursday, a jury at Woolwich Crown Court docket in London discovered Daniel Abed Khalife responsible of breaching the UK’s Official Secrets and techniques Act and the Terrorism Act after delivering categorized materials, together with the names of particular forces officers, to Iran between Might 2019 and January 2022.
The 23-year-old testified in court docket that he had been in contact with individuals within the Iranian authorities, however that it was all a part of a ploy to in the end work as a double agent for the UK, a scheme allegedly impressed by the hit TV present Homeland.
Khalife maintained he was a patriot and that he and his household hated the Iranian authorities. “Me and my household are in opposition to the regime in Iran,” he advised the jury.
Prosecutors mentioned the defendant, who had anonymously emailed the British international intelligence service MI6 saying he needed to be a spy, had performed a “cynical recreation”.
Khalife, who served as a pc engineer within the military, had additionally been charged with leaving a pretend bomb on a desk earlier than absconding from his barracks in January 2023, however the jury discovered him not responsible of perpetrating a bomb hoax.
The defendant made nationwide headlines after he escaped from London’s Wandsworth Jail in September 2023, attaching himself to the underside of a truck utilizing a makeshift sling produced from kitchen trousers and carabiners.
He was arrested three days afterward the footpath of the Grand Union Canal in West London after a nationwide manhunt.
Recalling the jailbreak in court docket, Khalife mentioned he had been demonstrating his “skillset” in a bid to persuade the authorities that it was “silly” to maintain him in jail.
Khalife, who’s of Iranian and Lebanese extraction, joined the Royal Corps of Indicators, a specialist unit offering communications, IT and cyber help to the military, on the age of 16.
Police described Khalife as a fantasist and amateurish in his strategy, however mentioned he had a critical hostile impact on British pursuits.
