The army interpreter accused of spying for Iran while serving in Afghanistan told the Old Bailey yesterday that he was a voodoo priest who had used black magic to protect his military boss from the Taleban in 2006.

Giving evidence for the first time at his trial, Corporal Daniel James, who is charged under the 1911 Official Secrets Act, said he had been trained as a voodoo priest on one of his many trips to Cuba and told the jury: “Black magic is not bad.”

His boss was General Sir David Richards, who in 2006 was commander of the Nato International Security Assistance Force (Isaf). Corporal James, who was in the Territorial Army, was the general's principal interpreter and attended meetings with him with senior members of the Afghan Government.

Under questioning by Colin Nicholls, QC, his defence counsel, Corporal James said he “quite liked” General Richards and used black magic on his behalf, although he emphasised that this was something he carried out without the general needing to be present.

For his voodoo rituals he used a combination of seashells, dust, Tarot cards and candles, and had a picture of General Richards.

Corporal James, 45, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of communicating information and collecting documents useful to an enemy, and one of wilful misconduct in public office.

The jury was told that he had been a salsa dance instructor, bodybuilder, champion power-lifter, an expert in kickboxing, a nightclub doorman and a croupier. He said that he had been talent-spotted by Jonathan Ross and appeared on television in the 1980s. He owned a club in Brighton and liked to be known as “Danny James, King of Salsa”.

One of nine children of affluent parents, Corporal James was born in Tehran as Esmail Mohammed Beigi Gamasai and came to live in Britain when he was 15, attending boarding school in Rottingdean, East Sussex.

He told the court that his job with General Richards was only a “tiny part” of what he did in Kabul. His other activities included organising salsa lessons, Spanish classes, volleyball, football, cricket and women's football.

Before he began interpreting for the general, Corporal James worked for a British colonel at an American camp in Kabul, helping to train the Afghan military. He said he thought that Americans were “fantastic people”. “They are loud and funny, like me,” he said.

The prosecution has claimed that he sent e-mail messages and made telephone calls to a Colonel Mohammad Heydari, a military assistant at the Iranian Embassy in Kabul. The Old Bailey has also heard that when he was arrested at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire in December 2006, on his way back to Afghanistan after a two-week break, police found in his bag a USB memory stick which, among other things, contained copies of two Nato-confidential military “situation reports”.

In written evidence, a British intelligence colonel, identified only as M, said that Corporal James had no right to possess such documents and that it was a “matter of serious concern”. He said that the e-mails that Corporal James sent to the Iranian military assistant, although not damaging in themselves, indicated a situation in which an espionage informant was communicating with a handler and that there was the potential for the interpreter to be “tasked” by the Iranian to obtain confidential material. That could have put British lives at risk and threatened national security, he said.

The trial continues.

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