Inmate guilty of helping supply jailbreak spy with cash

An inmate is facing jail for helping supply Iranian spy Daniel Khalife with cash after his escape from prison.

Khalife, 24, sparked a nationwide manhunt when he escaped HMP Wandsworth using bed sheets to strap himself to the underside of a Bidfood delivery lorry on 6 September 2023.

He approached at least five members of the public including a driver delivering an ice sculpture to Scott’s seafood restaurant in Richmond asking for their phones.

The former lance corporal was arrested while riding a stolen mountain bike along a canal towpath in Northolt three days after he escaped.

Khalife was found guilty of escaping from prison as well as spying for Iran in November 2024. He was jailed for 14 years and three months in prison in February last year.

Adeel Khan, 32, worked 190 shifts with Khalife in the prison kitchen, and arranged help for the fugitive using an illicit iPhone, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

Imran Chowdhury, 26, withdrew £400 from an ATM for Khalife outside Richmond Town Hall, after his jail break, jurors heard.

Khan, of Hornchurch, east London, denied but was convicted of assisting an escaped prisoner by a jury with a majority verdict of 11-to-one after four hours and 36 minutes of deliberation.

Chowdhury, of Chingford, east London, denied and was cleared of the charge.

Chowdhury explained Khan was a family friend but he had no idea he was a serving prisoner.

He said Khan messaged him on Snapchat asking him to carry out ‘a favour’ by taking £400 out of an ATM to pass a man near Richmond Old Town Hall.

Chowdhury worked in the offices of a national newspaper at the time in a ‘technical role’ but he insisted
he had no idea the man he was passing the cash to was Khalife.

Judge Murray Shanks said: ‘Khan had a record of offending and helped Mr Chowdhury who was involved without knowing what was going on, which seems to me a reasonable verdict’.

Tom Williams, prosecuting, said Khan was awaiting extradition to France for smuggling two pistols – one Austrian and one Slovak – across a border from France into Belgium.

‘The Crown say the offence Khan was awaiting extradition for, these offences, was a serious one’, which attracts a four year sentence.’

The judge said ‘it was too risky’ to allow Khan bail and remanded him in custody ahead of sentence on 4 September while reports are prepared.

The prosecutor earlier told jurors Khan had contacted his girlfriend who transferred money to Chowdhury as payment for him to drive to Richmond and withdraw the cash for Khalife using his American Express card.

‘CCTV captures Khalife and Mr Chowdhury walking along George Street in Richmond.

‘You can see that they go off camera to the ATM, where Mr Chowdhury then withdraws £400 for Khalife, using his AmEx. They then emerge again.

‘It now looks like Khalife has a mobile phone to his ear. Shortly afterwards, Mr Chowdhury was driving off in his BMW 118i – his part in this was complete.’

The prosecutor said within four minutes, Khan was using his iPhone 8 in prison to message his girlfriend Nazish Mahmood telling her to ‘send another 4bills to that guy please’.

‘She did so, and the 4 bills (£400) arrived the following morning.’

Mr Williams asked: ‘What did Mr Chowdhury know about the man he’d just handed over £400 to, for payment, after dark on the night of 6 September? He knew where to meet him – he’d put ‘Old Town Hall’ in the Waze app before setting off.

‘He must have known how to identify him, even if by the time the money was being taken out of the ATM Khalife appears to be wearing a face covering. How did he know those things – well, Mr Khan had told him.’

The prosecutor continued: ‘Since Khalife’s disappearance in the early hours of the morning, his escape and the attempts to find him had caused a media frenzy.

‘Khalife’s was the highest-profile escape in many years, given that he was a soldier charged with espionage and terrorism offences under the Official Secrets Act 1911 and the Terrorism Act 2000. ‘

The escape was reported widely on social media outlets including, TikTok and the New York Times and Chowdhury had the apps installed on his iPhone 14 Pro, the court heard.

Khalife used the £400 to buy clothes and a cheap Samsung J5 mobile from a ‘Gift Shop’ in Hammersmith.

Shopkeper Hamid Kakaizaddah said he recalled the customer wearing a face mask and looking down ‘as if he didn’t want to be seen’, said Mr Williams.

‘Given that he now had money and a phone, the inference must be that he was talking to Mr Khan about the next steps he would have to take, because it would only be so long before the police found him.

‘You can, you may think, cover quite a lot of ground in a conversation that lasts 17 minutes.’

The day before his arrest, Khalife can be seen on CCTV buying a copy of the Daily Mail in a newsagents in Chiswick with a news story about himself, as well as a 3G Mobile E Voucher, the court heard.

‘At 16:47 that afternoon, Khalife sent a message with the phone to his Iranian handlers, which said only ‘I wait’,’ said Mr Williams.

Half an hour later Khalife made the first of 12 attempts over three hours to contact Khan on his iPhone in prison but they didn’t connect

‘It will be clear to you by now how important Khalife felt it was for him to speak to Mr Khan – and the desperation that ensued when Mr Khan, for whatever reason, wasn’t picking up his phone.’

Khalife was arrested on the morning of 9 September cycling a mountain bike along the Grand Union Canal in Northolt, heading out of London.

‘It may have been that he was heading towards a town called Stone, near his old barracks, where he had left a stolen Ford Transit van full of, amongst other things, about £18,000 in cash,’ said Mr Williams.

Police found the Samsung J5 mobile phone, £200 in £20 notes, and the red 2023 diary containing Khan’s details in it, including his prison number and mobile phone number.

Officers searched Chowdhury’s BMW on 17 January 2024 and recovered a BlackBerry but they were unable to get into it, the court heard.

Chowdhury was interviewed by police and declined to answer any of the questions put to him.

His iPhone 14 Pro contained apps including Apple News, the New York Times, Twitter and TikTok.

Giving evidence Khan said he only saw Khalife occasionally in the prison gym.

Khan claimed when he was in contact with Khalife on the phone he thought he was speaking to an associate of a prisoner that he called ‘Alfie’ in order to pay him for tobacco.

Cross examining Chowdhury during his evidence Mr Williams asked: ‘We agree that now you know that man was Daniel Khalife. You now know that money you took out helped him buy a phone and communicate with his Iranian handlers.

‘How do you feel about that?’

Chowdhury replied: ‘Now I feel terrible. My whole life has gone to pieces, I’ve lost my job, I feel terrible. I would never go against the state’.

He said he knew Khan through his brother and had visited his family home.

Asked why he had said ‘I know why you are here’ when police stormed his home Chowdhury claimed this was nothing to do with Khalife – but because of a ‘bar fight’ that had resulted in a ‘murder’.

In November 2024, Khalife was found guilty of his prison escape as well as spying for Iran. He was sentenced to 14 years and three months in prison in February last year.

Chowdhury, of Parade Gardens, Chingford, and Khan, of Alma Avenue, Hornchurch, denied assisting an escaped prisoner.

Khan admitted possession of an iPhone 8 in prison.
ENDS