How police tracked down Daniel Khalife: Helicopters, police dogs and intelligence

The suspect pleads guilty to escaping HMP Wandsworth last September

Police dogs, a helicopter and officers searching in back gardens eventually helped lead to terror suspect Daniel Khalife’s capture following his escape from prison last September.

Khalife has now pleaded guilty to escaping from HMP Wandsworth on 6 September, 2023, after strapping himself onto the underside of a food catering truck using a sling made from kitchen trousers.

The sling “wasn’t spotted at Wandsworth gate or any other prison”, Khalife told jurors. “When the tail lift raised it covered me entirely. If the makeshift sling wasn’t noticed, they’re hardly going to notice me.”

Khalife escaped in the hope he would be kept in a high-security unit (HSU) at a different prison, away from "sex offenders" and "terrorists" after his recapture, he previously told his trial at Woolwich Crown Court.

Ms Justice Cheema-Grubb told jurors she had asked Khalife if he wanted the prison escape charge to be put to him again. When the charge was put to the former soldier, he replied: "I’m guilty."

Khalife shortly after his arrest on a canal towpath (Metropolitan Police/PA)

The court heard he planned a fake escape attempt for 21 August in the hope he would be moved to the HSU, but decided that a genuine escape was his only option after the incident was not reported to senior prison staff.

Khalife wanted to be kept in the HSU at HMP Belmarsh – a prison within a prison holding some of the country’s most dangerous criminals – because he believed he would be safer there, the court heard.

Khalife is also accused of spying for Iran while working for the British army. He continues to deny all other charges.

The Metropolitan Police previously noted the former soldier’s “ingenuity” as he managed to hold on to strapping on the underside of a delivery lorry to escape from HMP Wandsworth.

The force had no confirmed sightings until two days later – which appeared to be when officers honed-in on the 21-year-old.

Before any confirmed sighting, the Met said that officers had searched the Richmond Park area on the morning of Friday 8 September.

The force then said a member of the public reported seeing a man matching Khalife’s description walking away from a Bidfood van that had stopped near the south entrance to Wandsworth Roundabout shortly after his escape.

Commander Dominic Murphy said on the evening of Khalife’s escape that police had conducted an intelligence-led search at a residential property in the Richmond area.

Khalife escaped from HMP Wandsworth in London (PA Archive)

Mr Murphy would not say whether or not the address that was being searched in the Richmond borough was linked to Khalife by family or associates.

The counterterrorism officer said the force had been “deploying resources throughout the night”.

He said: “We had the helicopter up, we had dogs, we had an awful lot of resource.

“I’m aware that it caused some concern for residents seeing police officers trying to search around their houses and in some cases, I’ve heard on the media… in their back gardens.

“This was all in an effort to try and locate Daniel Khalife.”

Khalife was on the run for around 75 hours (Metropolitan Police/PA)

After completing the search at the residential address in Richmond, Mr Murphy said police received a call at around 2am or 3am from a member of the public who had seen Khalife in the streets in Chiswick.

He told reporters: “We then deployed officers there and we subsequently had further sightings in the Church Street and Chiswick Mall area, where again we deployed a number of officers.

“We consider those to be confirmed sightings of him.

“And then as a result of that activity, and clearly a number of other intelligence checks that we were doing at the time, we continued to deploy officers in that area, that’s when he was found this morning at 10.41am.”

Khalife is giving evidence in the trial at Woolwich Crown Court (Elizabeth Cook/PA)

Khalife was eventually found on a canal towpath in Northolt, west London, around eight miles from where he was last seen by a member of the public, on the morning of Saturday 9 September.

Asked for further detail on the arrest, Mr Murphy told the PA news agency: “The officer was responding as part of our search strategy following the call from the members of the public.

“And of course, we work really closely with intelligence partners here in counterterrorism.

“The officer was in that area as a result of being tasked to search for Daniel, saw him on a pedal cycle, was able to pull him off that pushbike, and arrest him at that moment in time.”