On 6 September he climbed under the lorry and he said: “When the tail lift raised it covered me entirely.”
He told the jury that when the Bidfood lorry got to the prison gate officers did their normal check with torches but did not find him.
“There was action around the lorry,” he said.
He also heard a governor ask “have you searched the vehicle?”
He then described climbing out from under the lorry near Wandsworth roundabout.
“I accept that I left the prison and I didn’t have any permission to do so,” he said.
He also told the jury that the fake bomb that he left on the desk of his barracks when he absconded from there in January 2022 was not designed to frighten anyone.
“I knew with certainty that all my colleagues would know that this was fake,” he said.
He told the jury he was trying to get his story reported in the media to increase his credibility with his Iranian intelligence handlers who he says he had given “entirely fictitious” information.
The jury has heard that Mr Khalife joined the army at 16, and had reached out to a man linked to Iranian intelligence aged 17. He then contacted MI6 saying he wanted to be a double agent.
He has told the jury all the information he gave the Iranians was “fake” or “useless”.
He denies gathering information useful to an enemy, collecting a list of Special Forces soldiers that would be useful for terrorism, perpetrating a bomb hoax and escaping from prison.
His evidence and the trial continue.
