2023-09-10 04:37:34
This story could inspire a film. A former British soldier prosecuted for terrorist offenses and suspected of espionage, Daniel Khalife, was arrested on Saturday in London after three days of a run which captivated the United Kingdom. “Officers from the Metropolitan Police arrested Daniel Khalife, who escaped from Wandsworth Prison on September 6,” London Police announced in a statement.
Daniel Khalife was arrested shortly before 11 a.m. in an area of west London, where his presence had been reported on Saturday evening. He is currently in police custody, Scotland Yard said. He was arrested “around 75 hours” after his disappearance. A turnaround “rather quickly given the difficulties in trying to find this individual,” Commander Dominic Murphy, head of London’s anti-terrorist police, told journalists.
The 21-year-old is suspected of having collected intelligence that could be used by terrorists or enemies of the United Kingdom. According to several media, including the BBC, he is suspected of having acted for the benefit of Iran.
Arrested while riding a bicycle
He was stopped by a plainclothes police officer while he was cycling on a path alongside a canal, and during his arrest showed himself “fully cooperating, was handcuffed and arrested,” he added. Police had promised up to 20,000 pounds sterling (23,000 euros) for information leading “directly” to his arrest.
His arrest puts an end to a three-day manhunt, the slightest upheavals of which were followed by the British media. The police had deployed a very large device, fearing that he would manage to leave the country. Since the G20 summit in India, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak welcomed the news to British television channels, thanking the police for their “terrific work” and the “public for their help”.
Questions about the prison system
This escape caused amazement and raised questions about the security of the prison system. Daniel Khalife escaped by clinging to a truck that had come to make a delivery for the prison kitchen, where he worked. Straps were found under the vehicle, suggesting he became attached to it.
The escape was “clearly prepared in advance,” London police chief Mark Rowley said on Friday.
Expelled from the army
Daniel Khalife is being prosecuted for acts dating back to January and August 2021, on a Royal Air Force base in Stafford, in central England. He is accused of having obtained or attempted to obtain information “about an individual who was or was a member” of the British army, “likely to be used by a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism” .
He is also being prosecuted for a false bomb threat on January 2. He was kicked out of the army in May. But he disputes the facts with which he is accused.
Prison known for its escapes
Once the fugitive has been caught, “the legal process must be able to resume its course,” noted Justice Minister Alex Chalk in a press release. “Nothing must be said or done that influences a future trial,” he added, stressing that the investigations he requested into the level of security of the penitentiary establishment and the choice to have Daniel imprisoned there Caliph are underway.
Wandsworth Prison was once the scene of one of the country’s best-known escapes, that of Ronnie Biggs, in 1965, who was serving a 30-year sentence for the attack on the Glasgow-London mail train two years ago previously. After making out with a rope ladder, he lived abroad for 36 years, notably in Australia and Brazil, before being arrested in 2001 upon his voluntary return to the United Kingdom. Released for medical reasons in 2009, he died in 2013.
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