The former British Army soldier accused of spying for Iran and escaping from prison has told a court he agreed to travel to the Middle Eastern country but “purposefully sabotaged the operation”.

Giving evidence at his trial at Woolwich Crown Court, Daniel Khalife said he flew to Turkey in August 2020 and was meant to travel onwards to Tehran.

But Mr Khalife said he told his Iranian handlers that he was too frightened to do so.

Prosecutors allege Mr Khalife collected sensitive military information for Iran, and later hid underneath a food truck to escape Wandsworth prison in south-west London on 6 September 2023. He denies the charges.

On Thursday, Mr Khalife told the court that his handlers had wanted him to go to the Iranian capital as “it was standard procedure for assets to go to the state”.

He was 18 years old at the time and serving in the British Army.

“I knew the only way I could travel without a visa was by an airline called Mahan Air which is owned by the IRGC,” Mr Khalife told the court, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the Iranian armed forces.

The jury heard that after arriving in Istanbul, he told his handlers that he was too “afraid” to fly to Iran because the aircraft was “30 years old”.

Mr Khalife said that in reality, he was worried there could be consequences if his handlers found out the information he had given them was “entirely fictitious”.

“I felt this would be dangerous,” he told the court.

The trial previously heard that police found “completely fake” documents purporting to be from MPs, senior military officials and the security services in Mr Khalife’s room.

Mr Khalife sent his handlers a video of himself at the Hilton Istanbul Bomonti hotel after they became suspicious he may not have in fact travelled to Turkey.

He said they also sent somebody “to scope [him] out” in a vehicle.

After returning to the UK, Mr Khalife sent his original Iranian contact an audio message which said: “I delivered a package to them, which I don’t think I should tell you – but just don’t mention it to anyone.”

He told the court in London that he had “of course” not delivered a package.

Mr Khalife also addressed images on his phone being used in evidence against him, claiming some had been sent to him on WhatsApp by his British troop commander.

He claimed that the 12 images, which prosecution experts said “could be of use to a foreign state,” were screenshots taken from an internal communication system and were sent to him and other soldiers by his captain as orders.

The jury previously heard that the Army was not supposed to use WhatsApp for orders.

“At the time it was quite frustrating to get so many images coming onto a device,” Mr Khalife told the court.

He said the commander “couldn’t be bothered to write the actual message out” and instead sent a screenshot from MoDNet, the communications system used by the Army.

Asked about another image on his phone sent by an officer, he said: “The only reason this was on my device is because they sent it to me.”

Some other pictures on his phone were ones he took himself because he had been asked to send them to more senior soldiers on WhatsApp, Mr Khalife said.

His defence barrister Gul Nawaz Hussain KC asked: “Were you ever told off, rebuked or disciplined for doing that?”

“On the contrary,” Mr Khalife said, “I was encouraged”.

The 23-year-old also said he had received a list on WhatsApp of all the soldiers who had been promoted to sergeant, including 15 in the Special Forces.

Special Forces soldiers are known as the “protected population” of the Army – but Mr Khalife explained how he could identify their first names by typing their surnames into an Army leave-booking system.

“You would put in a last name and a very long list of information would come out. A clear flaw,” he said.

The jury heard Mr Khalife thought British security services would be “impressed” by what he had found.

“I was the only person in the Ministry of Defence who discovered this flaw,” he claimed, adding that he had only searched the names of seven officers.

“It was a way of advertising my skillset.”

Prosecutors allege Mr Khalife was paid by the Iranian intelligence service for secret information gathered when he was in the Army.

Mr Khalife said he had “always had a gift for exposing flaws in security”.

On Wednesday, the jury heard, aged 15, Mr Khalife used a powerful magnet to remove shop security tags and got into trouble with the police for shoplifting.

Mr Khalife denies collecting information and sending it to an enemy, namely Iran.

He also denies taking a list of special forces soldiers that could be useful to terrorists, perpetrating a bomb hoax at his barracks and escaping from Wandsworth Prison.

His evidence and the trial continue.