Escaped terror suspect Daniel Abed Khalife arrested as police tackle him off bike
Former soldier in custody three days after escaping from Wandsworth prison
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A terror suspect who escaped from prison by strapping himself to the underside of a delivery lorry has been caught after being tackled off his bike on a towpath by a police officer.
Daniel Abed Khalife, 21, a former soldier who fled HMP Wandsworth on Wednesday, was arrested on suspicion of being unlawfully at large and being an escaped prisoner.
He was spotted by the plainclothes counterterrorism officer just before 11am on Saturday in northwest London, about 12 miles from where he fled, and is now in police custody, the Metropolitan Police said. Khalife was found with the bike, a sleeping bag and a cool bag full of food.
The hunt for Khalife began when Wandsworth prison sounded the alarm that one of its inmates was on the loose at 7.50am on Wednesday. The Bidfood lorry under which Khalife is believed to have strapped himself left the prison at 7.32am. Across the next three days, more than 150 Met Police officers worked “at pace around the clock” as they received more than 100 calls from the public, offered a £20,000 reward for information, and slowly closed in on Khalife.
Describing the investigation as “extremely complicated”, with a lot of police activity being led by intelligence, counterterrorism boss Commander Dominic Murphy said the search for Khalife “really gathered momentum” from Friday afternoon, with the number of calls the force received from the public increasing “substantially” overnight and into the early hours of Saturday morning.
What followed was an intelligence-led search of a home in the borough of Richmond at around 2am on Saturday. While that search was happening, multiple other reports came in from members of the public of sightings of Khalife in the Richmond and Chiswick areas of west London.
Consequently, armed officers, police dogs and helicopters descended on the quiet, leafy area of Chiswick on Saturday morning. Cars were stopped and inspected, residents were asked for their IDs, and a police boat patrolled the River Thames nearby, while there were reports of gardens being searched.
Khalife was eventually arrested near Rowdell Road in the Northolt area, with footage showing him sitting on the canal towpath, with a bike, a Waitrose cool bag and a sleeping bag nearby.
Ethan Andrews, 20, a student who witnessed the arrest, said that Khalife “laughed and winked” at him while he was sat handcuffed by officers.
He told The Sun: “The guy looked up at me, winked and started laughing. I thought, how arrogant is that? I can’t believe he was just sitting there, looked at me and just winked.”
Mr Murphy said: “He was actually arrested by a plainclothes officer... and he was riding a pedal cycle, so a pushbike, at the time, was pulled off that pushbike by that officer and arrested at that location,”
“Upon being detained by the officer he was fully cooperative and handcuffed and arrested.”
Questioned on why it took three days to complete the search, Mr Murphy said: “This isn’t a TV programme. This is a real-life manhunt for somebody who has escaped from prison and he’s quite a resourceful young man.”
The initial confirmed sighting came after police had scoured Richmond Park on Thursday night and into the early hours of Friday, with local resident Chloe Dobbs, 23, telling The Independent of the “overwhelming” sound of “constant” sirens and police helicopters circling for “hours and hours”.
Then, on Friday afternoon, police said that Khalife had been spotted emerging from underneath the delivery vehicle at Wandsworth Roundabout shortly after he escaped.
Gabriella Lewis, from Chiswick, told BBC News she believed she briefly spoke to Khalife as he sat on a bench in Chiswick House Gardens on Friday morning.
After commenting on the hot weather, she said he claimed he had just come out of the army. She described him as gentle and sweet, and said he was affectionate towards her dog.
Pointing to “the fact he could strap himself onto the bottom” of a delivery lorry, Met Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said Khalife’s escape was “clearly pre-planned”. Meanwhile, intelligence sources told The Independent it is “almost certain” that Khalife had “inside help”.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, CdrMurphy said there had been no further arrests so far. But he added: “Anyone who supported Khalife before, during or after – I can tell you we will be looking for those individuals.” He said the “fast-moving” investigation is still ongoing, with officers yet to conduct “a number of inquiries”.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak said he is “very pleased’’ the terror suspect has been arrested, as he praised efforts by the police and the public in finding him, while Home Office policing minister Chris Philp congratulated the police for their “rapid and effective’’ work.
Labour has demanded answers from the government about how the escape occured, now that Khalife has been arrested. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “We need answers about how on earth a prisoner charged with terror and national security offences could have escaped in this way.”
It is unclear whether Khalife will be taken to a higher-security location or back to the category B prison, where he was awaiting trial after being accused of leaving fake bombs at a military base.
Khalife is also accused of eliciting or trying to elicit information that could be useful for a terrorist on 2 August 2021, and breaching the Official Secrets Act by gathering information that could be useful to an enemy between 1 May 2019 and 6 January 2022.
Khalife, a British citizen whose father is said to be Iranian, allegedly attempted to pass on the information to a foreign power, believed to be Iran, security sources told The Independent. They allege that he sought to “graduate” into spying with the material he had obtained from the MoD.
Khalife was due to appear in court on 13 November to face charges. He denied the charges against him at the Old Bailey in July.
Writing for The Independent, the chief inspector of prisons described the chaos inside overcrowded Wandsworth jail. Charlie Taylor told of “small, dark and cramped” cells plagued with damp and vermin, where inmates are routinely locked up for 22 hours a day with little access to education or training to break the cycle of offending.
Mr Taylor said the single biggest problem that faces Wandsworth is a lack of staff, with shortages in every area. He added that many staff were only recently out of school and so inexperienced that prisoners frequently have to tell new workers what they are supposed to do.