Iranian secret agent or Homelander fan: The case of Daniel Khalife

Daniel Khalife, a 23-year-old British serviceman being accused of spying on behalf of the Islamic Republic, denied being an spy for Iran and claimed he had attempted to become a double agent after watching the TV show Homelander, British media reported on Friday. 

The 23-year-old alleged Iranian agent previously made headlines after escaping custody from Wandsworth prison for three days, leading to a nationwide manhunt. 

Khalife, who is no longer a member of the British armed forces, is also accused of leaving a fake bomb on a desk and absconding from his barracks in 2023, and then escaping from prison, sparking a brief nationwide manhunt.

Khalife had claimed that he received unwanted attention from sex offenders at the prison he was staying and that he feared attacks from convicted terrorists, over his military background, should he be moved to Belmarsh prison, Sky News reported.

Escaping prison

In August last year, the 23-year-old had first begun imitating escaping prison while working on kitchen duty. He claimed that after he was caught, little was done which led him to take the "full measure," he told the jury.

Khalife escaped on September 6.

"They did normal checks around with torches 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."

Despite his escape from prison and alleged ties to Tehran, Khalife denies that he had planned to leave the United Kingdom.

Khalife congratulated the officer who recovered him, the Guardian reported. The officer confirmed that he had complied with all the orders directed to him upon his apprehension.

“You’ve got me,” he reportedly told the officer upon apprehension. “Complete and utter rubbish.”

Asked by the courts why he had not turned himself in if he had no plans to escape, Khalife responded, "I was finally demonstrating what a foolish idea it was to have someone of my skillset in prison. What use was that to anyone?"

"I accept that I left the prison and didn't have any permission to do so," he said. "I accept absolutely that I shouldn't have done what I did."

Run-ins with IRGC agents

The court was reportedly told the 23-year-old had attempted to speak with intelligence officers but was passed up as his mother is Iranian and he could, therefore, not pass vetting.

“I was quite devastated,” he said after discovering he would be excluded from consideration for a role, according to the Jersey Evening Post.

"To this day, I don't think I've ever met one person who lives outside of Iran who isn't hostile to the government," Khalife said. "My mother detests the regime, probably the country as well, and that goes for the entirety of my family ... me and my family are against the regime in Iran."

Khalife reportedly told MI5 he wanted to be a double agent for Britain, and had expected congratulations following the interaction. Instead, he said he was met with arrests which felt like a "punch in the face."

The wanna-be agent claimed that his arrests were not in "the public[‘s] interest"

"I didn't do anything that harmed our national security. I wanted to put myself in a position where I could help my country," he said. "I believed I could continue my work actually located in the state - the state being Iran."

Prosecutors say Khalife picked up around 1,500 pounds ($2,000) in 2019 on instructions from his handler and anonymously emailed Britain's MI6 foreign intelligence service two weeks later, saying he wanted "to work as a double agent".

On Facebook, according to the US News outlet, Khalife reached out to an Iranian recently sanctioned by the United States. The sanctioned individual, named Hamed Ghashghavi, put Khalife in touch with Iranian intelligence officers.

“They viewed me as just a young boy and I could tell … they were trying to groom me and build a rapport with me,” he said.

Hollywood inspiration

Khalife said the idea of becoming a double agent had occurred to him as he enjoyed the series Homelander. 

"I had seen one of the characters in the program had actually falsely defected to a particular country and utilized that position to further the national security interests of that character's country," he said. "The country in question, Iran, thought it was real. She did it to further the interests of her own country."

"I do love my country. All I wanted to do was help. I never wanted to do any harm, I never did do any harm,” he told jurors. "It is tragic it has come to this and I would do anything to go back to my career."

Khalife has pled not guilty to charges of an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state under the Official Secrets Act between 1 May 2019 and 6 January 2022 and 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.

Reuters contributed to this report.