The Taliban is handing over three Afghans that it suspects of spying for Britain to Iran.

The transfer follows a secret deal between the two Islamist regimes to co-operate in arresting people who worked with British forces in Afghanistan.

The three are understood to have been included on a leaked list that contained names of Afghans who applied for asylum in Britain.

It included soldiers who worked with the British Army, as well as intelligence assets and special forces personnel.

British officials have now urged the Islamist regime to “honour” a general amnesty that it announced in 2021 after taking over the country.

Publications including The Telegraph were banned from revealing the leak under an unprecedented two year High Court super-injunction that was finally lifted in July, following a legal challenge.

The handing over of suspected British spies to Iran follows high-level negotiations between Taliban leadership and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials who flew to Kabul last week to formalise an intelligence-sharing arrangement.

The agreement allows both governments to pursue individuals identified in the compromised British database.

Senior Taliban officials said the suspected spies were being held in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and that their transfer to Tehran was awaiting approval from the interior ministry.

Sources claimed that the men had been named in a leaked spreadsheet containing the details of 25,000 Afghans who applied to the British Government to be resettled out of Afghanistan.