Former soldier Daniel Khalife tells of prison escape to prove his skillset

A former soldier has told a jury his escape from Wandsworth prison showed “it was a foolish idea” to hold someone of his “skillset” on charges of spying for Iran.

Daniel Khalife, 23, said he took the “full measure” to leave the Category B jail after an earlier attempt to “make a show” of escaping did not result in him being moved to a high-security unit.

He said he came up with a plan because he was getting unwanted attention from the sex offenders on the vulnerable prisoners wing and could not be in the main prison because as a British soldier, terrorists wanted to kill him.

Talking about the escape for the first time at his Woolwich Crown Court trial, Khalife told the jury how he fashioned a makeshift sling from kitchen trousers and carabiners used by inmates to keep their possessions safe from rats.

He attached it to a food delivery lorry on 1 September last year, to see if it would be spotted by officers at Wandsworth or other prisons on the delivery route.

“I put the two carabiners and the makeshift rope underneath the lorry,” he said.

“When I had made the decision to actually leave the prison I was going to do it properly so I tested the security not just in Wandsworth.”

“Strangely, over the coming days I could see it but it wasn’t spotted in Wandsworth or any other prison,” he said.

Then on the morning of 6 September, Khalife said he concealed himself underneath the lorry, resting his back on the sling as the lorry was searched.

“They did normal checks around the lorry but they didn’t find me. After that a governor came to the tunnel and said, ‘Have you searched the vehicle?’

“I was facing upwards. There was action around the lorry.”

Khalife said that when the vehicle stopped he “came out underneath the lorry and stayed in the prone position” until the lorry moved off.

He was arrested three days later on the footpath of the Grand Union Canal in Northolt, west London, after a nationwide manhunt.

Asked why he had not handed himself in after his escape, Khalife said: “I was finally demonstrating what a foolish idea it was to have someone of my skillset in prison. What use was that to anyone.”

Khalife, from Kingston, southwest London, denies a charge of committing an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state under the Official Secrets Act between 1 May 2019 and 6 January 2022.

He has also pleaded not guilty to a charge under the Terrorism Act of eliciting information about Armed Forces personnel on 2 August 2021, perpetrating a bomb hoax on or before 2 January 2023 and escaping from prison on 6 September last year.