Daniel Khalife, 23, a former British soldier, has told a jury he did not hand himself in after escaping from Wandsworth prison because he was “finally demonstrating what a foolish idea it was” to imprison someone with his “skill set”.
Giving evidence at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday, Khalife said he absconded while on remand because he was “terrified” of being locked up with “serious sex offenders” and “terrorists” who wanted to kill him, and that he did not think his imprisonment would be in the public interest.
Khalife, who is accused of passing secret information to “agents of Iran”, perpetrating a bomb hoax, and escaping from prison, said he made his escape to be upgraded from a category B to a category A prisoner, so he would be kept in a high-security unit when moved to Belmarsh prison for his trial.
He told jurors that two weeks before his getaway, he “acted suspiciously” by covering himself in soot from a food delivery lorry while working in the prison kitchen, but the matter was not escalated. He then decided to actually escape, attaching a makeshift sling to the underneath of the lorry on 1 September 2023 to test security. On 6 September, he got into the sling and was not found despite officers’ checks.
Khalife was arrested three days later on the Grand Union canal after a nationwide manhunt. He told the court he accepted he left prison without permission and should not have done so, but said his escape demonstrated “what a foolish idea it was to have someone of my skill set in prison”. He denies all charges.
