UK court convicts former soldier of passing intelligence to Iran
Al Jazeera
Daniel Abed Khalife, who joined army at 16, claimed he was inspired by TV show Homeland to work as double agent.
A former British soldier has been convicted of passing on sensitive information to people connected with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
On Thursday, a jury at Woolwich Crown Court in London found Daniel Abed Khalife guilty of breaching the United Kingdom’s Official Secrets Act and the Terrorism Act after delivering classified material, including the names of special forces officers, to Iran between May 2019 and January 2022.
The 23-year-old testified in court 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 the UK, a scheme allegedly inspired by the hit TV show Homeland.
Khalife maintained he was a patriot and that he and his family hated the Iranian government. “Me and my family are against the regime in Iran,” he told the jury.
Prosecutors said the defendant, who had anonymously emailed the British foreign intelligence service MI6 saying he wanted to be a spy, had played a “cynical game”.
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