{"id":38865,"date":"2024-11-28T06:32:09","date_gmt":"2024-11-28T11:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/former-british-soldier-convicted-of-passing-on-sensitive-information-to-the-iranian-government\/28\/11\/2024\/"},"modified":"2024-11-28T06:32:09","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T11:32:09","slug":"former-british-soldier-convicted-of-passing-on-sensitive-information-to-the-iranian-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/former-british-soldier-convicted-of-passing-on-sensitive-information-to-the-iranian-government\/28\/11\/2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Former British soldier convicted of passing on sensitive information to the Iranian government"},"content":{"rendered":"

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LONDON (AP) \u2014 A former British soldier whose audacious escape from a London prison<\/a> spurred a dayslong search was convicted on Thursday of passing on sensitive information to the Iranian intelligence service.<\/p>\n

Daniel Khalife, 23, was found guilty by a jury in Woolwich Crown Court on violations of Britain’s Official Secrets Act by collecting information useful to an enemy \u2014 Iran. He was cleared of a charge of planting fake bombs in his military barracks.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said Khalife played a \u201ccynical game\u201d by claiming he wanted to be a spy after he had delivered a large amount of restricted and classified material to Iran, including the names of special forces officers.<\/p>\n

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Khalife testified that he had been in touch with people in the Iranian government but that it was all part of a ploy to ultimately work as a double-agent for Britain, a scheme he said he got from watching the TV show \u201cHomeland.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to utilize my background to further our national security,\u201d he told jurors.<\/p>\n

Defense lawyer Gul Nawaz Hussein said Khalife\u2019s aspirations to be James Bond were na\u00efve, stupid and bordered on slapstick. He said his client was more \u201cScooby Doo\u201d than \u201c007.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khalife\u2019s case had not received much attention until he escaped from a London prison in September 2023 and went on the run for three days.<\/p>\n

Khalife was being held on the charges in Wandsworth Prison when he escaped from the kitchen by strapping himself to the bottom of a delivery truck. He was ultimately nabbed on a canal path.<\/p>\n

During his trial, Khalife pleaded guilty to the escape, but continued to contest the spying charges.<\/p>\n

Khalife joined the Army at 16 and was assigned to the Royal Corps of Signals, a communications unit that is deployed with battlefield troops, as well as special forces and intelligence squads.<\/p>\n

He was told he could not join the intelligence service because his mother is from Iran.<\/p>\n

At 17, he reached out to a man connected with Iranian intelligence and began passing along information, prosecutors said. He was given NATO secret security clearance when he took part in a joint exercise at Fort Cavazos in Texas in early 2021.<\/p>\n

British security officials were not aware of Khalife\u2019s contacts with the Iranians until he contacted MI6, the U.K.\u2019s foreign intelligence service, to offer to work as a double-agent.<\/p>\n

He reached out to MI6 anonymously, saying he had earned the trust of his Iranian handlers and that they had rewarded him by leaving a bag in a north London park that contained $2,000 cash ($1,578 pounds).<\/p>\n

Khalife said most of the material he provided to his Iranian handlers was information he made up or documents that were available online and didn\u2019t expose military secrets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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LONDON (AP) — A former British soldier whose audacious escape from a London prison spurred a dayslong search was convicted on Thursday