Second man charged with aiding Daniel Khalife’s escape prison

A second man has been charged with allegedly assisting Daniel solider-turned spy Daniel Khalife after he escaped from prison.

Adeel Khan, 30, of Waltham Forest, has been charged with helping the traitor after he escaped from HMP Wandsworth in September 2023.

He has also been charged with possession of a phone in prison contrary to Section 40 D(1) of the Prisons Act 1952.

Khan was charged by post via earlier this month and will appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.

Last week Imran Chowdhury 25 of Chingford, appeared before the same court also charged with assisting Khalife. He pleaded not guilty and was released on bail to appear at Snaresbrook Crown Court on 4 February.

A 25-year-old woman who was also arrested in February last year on suspicion of assisting Khalife has been told she faces no action after police found no evidence of her involvement.

Khalife, 23, provoked a nationwide manhunt after escaping HMP Wandsworth – where he was being held on remand for spying charges – and going on the run for three days.

The ex-soldier, who has an Iranian mother and Lebanese father, was allegedly recruited by the rogue state via Facebook just weeks after joining the Royal Corps of Signals.

He told jurors he had been undertaking a one-man “double agent” mission after being told his Iranian heritage would stop him from getting his dream role in British intelligence.

The trial at Woolwich Crown Court heard how Khalife played a “cynical game” after contacting a man linked to Iranian intelligence on Facebook weeks after joining the army as a 16-year-old in September 2018.

The teenage rookie created and passed on fake documents supposedly from MPs, senior military officials and the security services. He also sent genuine army documents after boasting to the Iranians that he would stay undercover in the British Army for “25-plus years”.

He collected sensitive information that posed a real danger in the wrong hands and, on one occasion, was sent to collect £1,500 left in a dog poo bag in a north London park.

He gathered the names of 15 serving squaddies – including elite special forces soldiers – which are believed to have been passed on to Iran before he deleted the evidence.

Then, in November 2021, he made an anonymous call to the MI5 public reporting line, confessing to being in contact with Iran for more than two years.

He offered to help the British security services and said he wanted to return to his normal life.

But he then fled his base at Beacon Barracks in Stafford, leaving behind a fake bomb comprising three nitrous oxide canisters taped together on his desk.

After being arrested and charged, he was remanded in custody at HMP Wandsworth where, eight months later, he carried out his audacious escape by exploiting his role as a kitchen chef to attach a sling made from torn kitchen trousers to the bottom of a food delivery lorry.

He had denied the escape before admitting his guilt midway through the November trial.

Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb warned Khalife that he would face “a long custodial sentence” when he is sentenced in early 2025.

The UK has sanctioned more than 450 Iranian individuals and entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in its entirety, as well as individual commanders.