Daniel Khalife: Former soldier who escaped from Wandsworth Prison guilty of spying for Iran
A former British soldier who escaped from Wandsworth Prison has been found guilty of spying for Iran.
Daniel Khalife, 23, who was a lance corporal in the Royal Signals, used a sling made from trousers worn by inmates working in the kitchen to cling to the underside of a food delivery lorry on 6 September last year.
He was being held in the Category B prison accused of handing secret information, including a list of soldiers – some of whom were serving in the SAS – to Iranian spies.
MI5, the Ministry of Defence and counter-terrorism police launched a nationwide manhunt, fearing Khalife would try to flee to Tehran or get to the Iranian embassy in London.
Woolwich Crown Court heard that while on the run he bought a mobile phone to call his handlers, who used the code name “David Smith”, and sent the message: “I wait.”
Khalife was arrested on 9 September. Pic: Met Police
But Khalife was arrested on the morning of 9 September when he was spotted riding a stolen mountain bike along the canal towpath in Northolt, west London – about 14 miles away from Wandsworth Prison.
He initially pleaded not guilty to an escape charge but changed his plea after describing the break-out to jurors, saying it showed “what a foolish idea it was to have someone of my skillset in prison”.
Khalife, who first contacted an Iranian spy soon after he joined the Army aged 16, claimed he wanted to be a “double agent” and “thought he could be James Bond” but had only passed on fake or useless information.
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From October: Jurors shown CCTV of Khalife after escape
Giving evidence, he described himself as an English “patriot”, adding: “I’m certainly not a terrorist or a traitor.”
But he was found guilty of a charge of gathering, publishing or communicating information that might be useful to an enemy between 1 May 2019 and 6 January 2022, under the Official Secrets Act.
Khalife, from Kingston, in southwest London, was also found guilty of eliciting personal information about armed forces personnel that was likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism on 2 August 2021.
The charge related to a photo of a handwritten list of 15 soldiers, including some from special forces serving in the Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Service (SBS).
Khalife was found not guilty of perpetrating a bomb hoax at his barracks in January 2023.
Daniel Khalife joined the Army aged 16
‘The ultimate Walter Mitty’
Dominic Murphy, the head of the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism command, said while Khalife’s approach was “amateurish” with elements of “fantasy”, the reality was he provided “highly sensitive” information to the Iranian state.
“He’s the ultimate Walter Mitty character,” he said. “The problem is he’s a Walter Mitty character that was having an extremely significant impact on the real world.”
A Walter Mitty character is someone who is ordinary but has an extraordinary imagination and daydreams about personal triumphs to escape their dull life.
Mr Murphy said the “game” played by Khalife to “fuel his ego” posed “a significant risk to national security” and he had “enjoyed the thrill of the deception throughout”.
Police have disrupted 20 direct plots from the Iranian government, including assignations or immediate threats to life, and the state’s agents “pose a very real threat to national security and to individuals here in the UK”, Mr Murphy said.
Khalife told the jury he contacted an Iranian agent through Facebook because he wanted to endear himself to the UK security services after he was told he couldn’t pass developed vetting to fulfil his dream of working in intelligence because his mother was born in Iran.
A selfie of Daniel Khalife in Mill Hill Park. Pic: Met Police
Khalife collected cash in a dog poo bag. Pic: Met Police
Dead drops
Khalife left material in public locations in exchange for cash in an old-fashioned spy tactic known as the “dead drop” or “dead letter box”.
He first collected £1,500 in a dog poo bag in Mill Hill Park in Barnet, north London, in August 2019 and made a second £1,000 cash pick-up from Kensal Green Cemetery, in North Kensington, in October 2021.
He twice travelled from his barracks, in Staffordshire, to the Iranian embassy in South Kensington, in London, and even flew to Istanbul, where he stayed in the Hilton hotel between 4 and 10 August 2020, and “delivered a package” for Iranian agents, the court heard.
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Sky’s Shamaan Freeman-Powell reports from Woolwich Crown Court
The contact continued while he was deployed to Fort Hood, Texas, where he received training in Falcon, a military communications system.
Khalife repeatedly contacted the British security services himself saying he wanted to be a “double agent”, but MI5 reported him to police, who arrested him.
While on bail, he went AWOL from his base, leaving a device made from three laughing gas canisters bound with sniper tape on his desk.
Khalife left a fake device. Pic: Met Police
He stayed in a stolen Ford Transit van, later found containing a camp bed, around £20,000, and notes saying he wanted to defect to Iran.
Prosecutors said he planned to leave the country, having previously travelled to Turkey as a test for onward travel to Iran, and he was in contact with his Iranian handlers, making attempts to get to the embassy.
But he was arrested again three weeks later after a colleague spotted him in the leisure centre. He was then held on remand in Wandsworth Prison, where he managed to get a job in the kitchen.
Escape planned for ‘quite some time’
Khalife told the jury he planned the escape because he wanted to be moved to the high-security unit in Belmarsh to avoid sex predators and terrorists who wanted to do him harm.
Khalife escaped under a Bidfood lorry. Pic: PA
Khalife used a makeshift sling. Pic: Met Police
Police believe he had been planning the “pretty audacious” break-out for “quite some time” and he wrote in his prison diary of a “failed” escape attempt on 21 August last year.
Khalife told the jury he attached the makeshift rope to the Bidfood lorry on 1 September to test prison security as it made its daily deliveries.
“When I had made the decision to actually leave the prison I was going to do it properly,” he said, describing how he concealed himself, resting his back on the sling as the vehicle was searched.
The driver Balazs Werner said two guards told him someone was missing as they checked the truck with a torch and mirror and he was surprised he was allowed to drive off and that the prison wasn’t in lockdown.
Khalife said he waited for the lorry to stop, dropped to the ground and lay in the prone position until it moved off.
He used the phone at the Rose of York pub in Richmond before a contact withdrew £400 from a nearby cashpoint, which he used to buy a sleeping bag, a mobile phone and a change of clothes.
CCTV footage captured his movements as he bought clothes from Marks & Spencer, stole a hat from Mountain Warehouse, drank coffee at McDonald’s and even read about his escape in the newspaper.
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From October: Khalife caught on CCTV. Pic: Met Police
When he was arrested on the footpath of the Grand Union Canal in Northolt after four days on the run, Khalife told police: “My body aches. I f****d myself up under the lorry” and “I don’t know how immigrants do it”.
Police said he had no help from anyone inside prison, Iran or close family members in London but a 24-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman were arrested earlier this year on suspicion of assisting an offender and the investigation is ongoing.
The prisons watchdog called for Wandsworth to be put into emergency measures in the wake of Khalife’s escape, while a security audit identified “81 points of failure” and resulted in “long overdue” upgrades to CVTV cameras which hadn’t worked for more than a year.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) later announced it would be redirecting £100m from across the prison service to spend over five years on bringing in “urgent improvements”.
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Meanwhile, Bethan David, from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: “As a serving soldier of the British Army Daniel Khalife was employed and entrusted to uphold and protect the national security of this country. But, for purposes of his own, Daniel Khalife, used his employment to undermine national security.
“The sharing of the information could have exposed military personnel to serious harm, or a risk to life, and prejudiced the safety and security of the United Kingdom.
“It is against the law to collate and share secret and sensitive information for a purpose against the interests of the United Kingdom.
“Such hostile and illegal activities jeopardise the national security of the United Kingdom, and the CPS will always seek to prosecute anyone that carries out counter state threats.”
Hundreds of UK online safety workers at TikTok have already signed agreements to leave the company, whistleblowers have told Sky News, despite the firm stressing to MPs that the cuts were “still proposals only”.
More than 400 online safety workers have agreed to leave the social media company, with only five left in consultation, Sky News understands.
“[The workers have] signed a mutual termination agreement, a legally binding contract,” said John Chadfield, national officer for the Communication Workers’ Union.
“They’ve handed laptops in, they’ve handed passes in, they’ve been told not to come to the office. That’s no longer a proposal, that’s a foregone conclusion. That’s a plan that’s been executed.”
Moderators gathered to protest the redundancies
In August, TikTok announced a round of mass layoffs to its Trust and Safety teams.
“Everyone in Trust and Safety” was emailed, said Lucy, a moderator speaking on condition of anonymity for legal reasons.
After a mandatory 45-day consultation period, the teams were then sent “mutual termination agreements” to sign by 31 October.
Sky News has seen correspondence from TikTok to the employees telling them to sign by that date.
“We had to sign it before the 31st if we wanted the better deal,” said Lucy, who had worked for TikTok for years.
“If we signed it afterwards, that diminished the benefits that we get.”
Three former moderators at TikTok have spoken to Sky News on camera
Despite hundreds of moderators signing the termination contracts by 31 October, Ali Law, TikTok’s director of public policy and government affairs for northern Europe, said to MPs in a letter on 7 November: “It is important to stress the cuts remain proposals only.”
“We continue to engage directly with potentially affected team members,” he said in a letter to Dame Chi Onwurah, chair of the science, innovation and technology committee.
After signing the termination contracts, the employees say they were asked to hand in their laptops and had access to their work systems revoked. They were put on gardening leave until 30 December.
“We really felt like we were doing something good,” said Saskia, a moderator also speaking under anonymity.
“You felt like you had a purpose, and now, you’re the first one to get let go.”
TikTok moderators and union workers protested outside the company’s London headquarters in September
A TikTok worker not affected by the job cuts confirmed to Sky News that all of the affected Trust and Safety employees “are now logged out of the system”.
“Workers and the wider public are rightly concerned about these job cuts that impact safety online,” said the TUC’s general secretary, Paul Nowak.
“But TikTok seem to be obscuring the reality of job cuts to MPs. TikTok need to come clean and clarify how many vital content moderators’ roles have gone.
“The select committee must do everything to get to the bottom of the social media giant’s claims, the wider issues of AI moderation, and ensure that other workers in the UK don’t lose their jobs to untested, unsafe and unregulated AI systems.”
Moderators and union representatives outside TikTok’s offices
What TikTok has said about the job cuts
In an interview with Sky News on 18 November, Mr Law again called the cuts “proposals”.
When asked if the cuts were in fact a plan that had already been executed, Mr Law said there was “limited amounts” he could directly comment on.
TikTok told us: “It is entirely right that we follow UK employment law, including when consultations remained ongoing for some employees and roles were still under proposal for removal.
“We have been open and transparent about the changes that were proposed, including in detailed public letters to the committee, and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise.”
The three whistleblowers Sky News spoke to said they were concerned TikTok users would be put at risk by the cuts.
The company said it will increase the role of AI in its moderation, while maintaining some human safety workers, but one whistleblower said she didn’t think the AI was “ready”.
“People are getting new ideas and new trends are coming. AI cannot get this,” said Anna, a former moderator.
“Even now, with the things that it’s supposed to be ready to do, I don’t think it’s ready.”
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Is TikTok improving safety with AI?
Lucy also said she thought the cuts would put users at risk.
“There are a lot of nuances in the language. AI cannot understand all the nuances,” she said.
“AI cannot differentiate some ironic comment or versus a real threat or bullying or of a lot of things that have to do with user safety, mainly of children and teenagers.”
TikTok has been asked by MPs for evidence that its safety rates – which are currently some of the best in the industry – will not worsen after these cuts.
The select committee says it has not produced that evidence, although TikTok insists safety will improve.
“[In its letter to MPs] TikTok refers to evidence showing that their proposed staffing cuts and changes will improve content moderation and fact-checking – but at no point do they present any credible data on this to us,” said Dame Chi earlier this month.
“It’s alarming that they aren’t offering us transparency over this information. Without it, how can we have any confidence whether these changes will safeguard users?”
Dame Chi Onwurah speaks at the House of Commons. File pic: Reuters
TikTok’s use of AI in moderation
In an exclusive interview with Sky News earlier this month, Mr Law said the new moderation model would mean TikTok can “approach moderation with a higher level of speed and consistency”.
He said: “Because, when you’re doing this from a human moderation perspective, there are trade-offs.
“If you want something to be as accurate as possible, you need to give the human moderator as much time as possible to make the right decision, and so you’re trading off speed and accuracy in a way that might prove harmful to people in terms of being able to see that content.
“You don’t have that with the deployment of AI.”
As well as increasing the role of AI in moderation, TikTok is reportedly offshoring jobs to agencies in other countries.
Sky News has spoken to multiple workers who confirmed they’d seen their jobs being advertised in other countries through third-party agencies, and has independently seen moderator job adverts in places like Lisbon.
John Chadfield, national officer for technology at the Communication Workers Union
“AI is a fantastic fig leaf. It’s a fig leaf for greed,” said Mr Chadfield. “In TikTok’s case, there’s a fundamental wish to not be an employer of a significant amount of staff.
“As the platform has grown, as it has grown to hundreds of millions of users, they have realised that the overhead to maintain a professional trust and safety division means hundreds of thousands of staff employed by TikTok.
“But they don’t want that. They see themselves as, you know, ‘We want specialists in the roles employed directly by TikTok and we’ll offshore and outsource the rest’.”
Mr Law told Sky News that TikTok is always focused “on outcomes”.
He said: “Our focus is on making sure the platform is as safe as possible.
“And we will make deployments of the most advanced technology in order to achieve that, working with the many thousands of trust and safety professionals that we will have at TikTok around the world on an ongoing basis.”
Asked specifically about the safety concerns raised by the whistleblowers, TikTok said: “As we have laid out in detail, this reorganisation of our global operating model for Trust and Safety will ensure we maximize effectiveness and speed in our moderation processes.
“We will continue to use a combination of technology and human teams to keep our users safe, and today over 85% of the content removed for violating our rules is identified and taken down by automated technologies.”
*All moderator names have been changed for legal reasons.
UK
Four mayoral elections to be postponed – as Labour accused of ‘scandalous attempt to subvert democracy’
Four mayoral elections due to take place in May 2026 are set to be postponed by two years, Sky News understands.
Elections for the new mayoralties of Essex, Hampshire and the Solent, Sussex and Brighton, and Norfolk and Suffolk will be pushed back until 2028.
The decision, first revealed by The Sun, is due to be announced by ministers on Thursday.
This is the second time elections are being delayed in these areas. Local elections due in May 2025 were delayed by then communities secretary Angela Rayner for a year in order to convert them into combined authorities led by mayors.
However, it is understood that these councils need more time to complete their reorganisation.
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The news has sparked accusations Labour are delaying the elections for political purposes.
Reform UK’s head of policy Zia Yusuf said: “This is a blatant attempt to stop big Reform wins next May.
“It’s an act of a desperate government who are clinging onto power by any means necessary.
“Labour has proven time and time again that they’re not beyond denying democracy to millions of people in order to maintain their cosy status quo.”
Pic: PA
The Tories’ shadow housing secretary James Cleverly said it was a “scandalous attempt to subvert democracy by a Labour government whose credibility and popularity are already in tatters”.
“The Conservatives firmly oppose this decision to delay the mayoral elections, especially when candidates have been selected and campaigning is well under way,” he added.
“Democracy is being denied yet again after the council elections cancelled by Labour this year.
“There is no credible justification for this move. The Labour government must reverse it immediately.”
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The reorganisation is part of Labour’s manifesto commitment to widen devolution, which it argues will improve local economies.
The government wants to abolish the two-tier system of county and district councils and merge them together to create larger unitary authorities. It also wants more areas to have regional mayors, like Greater Manchester’s Andy Burnham.
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Reform UK enjoyed success in the local elections in May, winning more than 600 seats and taking control of 10 councils stretching from Kent to County Durham. The party also toppled a 14,000-strong Labour majority in a parliamentary by-election.
The Liberal Democrats’ local government spokesperson Zoe Franklin called the postponed elections “a disgrace”.
“Democracy delayed is democracy denied,” she added. “We are fighting to end this blatant stitch up between Labour and the Conservatives over local elections.”
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