A man on trial for belonging to a terrorist organisation has claimed that British intelligence spies recruited him before tricking him into going to Syria to join the Islamic State.

Azamat Aivazov was born a Russian citizen in the federal republic of Dagestan but he moved to the UK nine years ago when he says he was recruited by the British intelligence services.

Speaking to global Russian media outlet RT News, Aivazov said that the British asked him to go to Syria to join the Islamic State (IS). But he added that he quickly lost touch with his recruiters in Britain.

Aivazov says that he was seriously wounded and eventually returned to Europe using a fake Ukrainian passport before being deported to Russia.

He is currently being held at a pre-trial detention centre in Makhachkala, a major Russian seaport on the Caspian Sea, on charges of terrorism.

The suspected terrorist revealed details about how the British intelligence services had allegedly recruited him and said that the problems started almost as soon as he had arrived in the UK in 2012.

He had allegedly posed as a political refugee. According to Russian media outlet Vesti, he tore up his Russian passport as soon as he arrived at the airport in the UK, saying: “I tore my Russian passport at the airport so that they would not deport me back, just because of this.”

Aivazov says he then settled in Leicester, living in social housing on benefits.

He attended a Mosque and taught the local kids wrestling.

A few years later, after visiting his sister in Germany, he says that MI6 agents were waiting for him at Heathrow airport upon his return to the UK.

Aivazov says that they introduce themselves as MI6, the best known branch of British intelligence, popularised by the world famous James Bond books and films.

He claims that during one of the initial meetings he had with them, he had put his phone on aeroplane mode and recorded the conversation without their knowledge.

He says that one of the recruiters said: “We don’t need you to spy, we don’t need to know what is happening in the mosque, this is religion, this is personal. We don’t want to know personal things, we don’t need to know the details of civilians, we want to try to determine if there is a problem.

“We could come to you and, you know, ask if you saw these people. We stay in touch with people who are ready to do this, we pay them.”

He told Vesti that two different people were involved in the efforts to recruit him into MI6.

He says that the first one was a tall brunette with a short haircut who was often silent, usually making notes in a notebook.

The other recruiter, who allegedly made most of the recruitment proposals to Aivazov, was a man with blue eyes, red hair and a beard, who was about 50 years old.

He says that he refused to spy in the local Leicester mosques but was approached a few days later with a different offer of going to Syria to an area under the control of the IS terrorist organisation.

He was allegedly asked to take photographs of other Europeans who had joined IS and to send the information back to London over the Internet.

He says that he was promised GBP 20,000 for three months work in Syria, half of which she was paid immediately. The other half he would get upon completing his mission.

Aivazov claims that they said that he would not have to fight and that he would only be spending some time living in a training camp, so a few days later he was on a flight to Turkey to meet a contact affiliated with British intelligence in Istanbul and named in Vesti as Abu-Mukatil.

He says that the person that he met in Istanbul was a Somali from England and that he spoke with an English accent.

Aivazov said that despite being in prison in Russia, he now feels protected from the outside world.

He said that he is still haunted by what IS made him do and that the British had lied to him when they said that he would not have to fight.

He said that as soon as he arrived in Syria, he was expected to take part in an attack on a peaceful Kurdish village the following morning.

Aivazov says that he had to fire a gun in the general direction of people but he does not know if he hit anyone.

He says he asked his MI6 contacts to get him out of Syria. He was given a set of coordinates but instead of being extracted, he says a combat drone showed up instead.

He claims that MI6 left him to his fate after he was seriously injured, cut all ties with him and did not even pay him the rest of the money that they allegedly owed him, or help his family.

Aivazov says that he eventually managed to leave Syria on his own steam. As soon as he crossed the border into Turkey, he was arrested and spent some time in prison for having illegally crossed the border.

He says he then managed to leave using a fake passport before flying to South America and then on to Europe.

He was eventually deported to Russia from the Netherlands and was detained over his fake identification documents.

His mother Abdurazakova is quoted in Vesti as saying: “They just used him – he is a refugee, he is not a British citizen. The loss for them is not great.”

Aivazov is reportedly not in touch any more with his wife and children who are living in Turkey, and he only receives visits in prison from his mother.

His case is set to be examined by a court in the near future although an exact date has not yet been announced.