The prosecution says he also sent messages on Telegram to an account linked to Iranian intelligence, including a message that read “I wait”.
On the morning of Saturday 9 September, CCTV caught him in a McDonald’s in Southall, west London, where he changed clothes in the toilet and bought an espresso.
Not long after that he was arrested on a canal towpath in nearby Northolt.
The day after he was recaptured, Mr Khalife told the interviewing officer that in the army “you’re literally trained for escape and evasion”, the court was told.
“You’re trained to live in the woods, you’re trained to kill people,” he said.
“You put a soldier in a cage, he only thinks about how can I get out of the cage.”
The court heard Mr Khalife told officers he “never thought” it was a crime to escape from prison and he did not realise how “unbelievably dangerous” it was underneath a truck until the speed limit increased.
He also complained about the “terrible” picture that had been circulated of him during the manhunt and regretted being a “burden” on the country when hearing about lorries being stopped and airport delays.
Mr Khalife denies escaping from prison, gathering information useful for Iran, collecting names of special forces soldiers useful to terrorists and perpetrating a bomb hoax at his barracks in Stafford.
The trial continues.
