20 June 2025
Daniel Khalife’s escape from HM Wandsworth strapped by a pair of trousers beneath the chassis of a delivery van grabbed public attention back in 2023. In this week’s NLJ, Sailesh Mehta and Theo Burges, Red Lion Chambers, examine how spies have previously been sentenced in the UK, the core principles involved, the increasingly close link between terrorism and espionage offences, and why they expect the number of prosecutions in this area to grow
Khalife was sentenced to 14 years in prison in February. He had been convicted of breaches of the Official Secrets Act and Terrorism Act.
Mehta and Burges write: ‘What R v Khalife demonstrates—in contrast to other espionage cases of the Cold War era—is that the interaction between terrorism legislation and espionage legislation will likely only increase. As such, understanding the key themes of sentencing in espionage cases will likely pay dividends.’RELATED ARTICLES
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