After a four-day manhunt, escaped British terror suspect Daniel Abed Khalife has finally been apprehended, British media report.
After being spotted several times by people overnight, on Saturday morning, he was finally apprehended in the Chiswick area of west London when a plain-clothes police officer, having recognized him, pulled Khalife off a bike on a canal towpath.
At the moment of his arrest, he was pictured on the pavement in handcuffs, next to a bike, a sleeping bag and a Waitrose cool bag.
At a press conference, Metropolitan Police commander Dominic Murphy described the search for Khalife as “extremely complicated,” and said officers did well to capture the “resourceful” prisoner within 75 hours.
The manhunt, he said, had “really gathered momentum” on Friday afternoon, with multiple reports of confirmed sightings, which led to an overnight search of a home in the borough of Richmond.
While no further arrests had been made, Murphy made plain to “anyone who supported Khalife before, during or after—I can tell you we will be looking for those individuals.”
He added that the public had been “integral” to the search, as over 100 calls had been made to police with information.
Khalife is now in custody in a west London police station.
Speaking at the G20 summit in Delhi, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was “very pleased” Daniel Khalife had been arrested, praising police officers and the public for their efforts in finding him.
Commenting on what steps would be taken, he added that Justice Secretary Alex Chalk had “initiated an inquiry into the circumstances of his escape and that work will continue.”
Chalk said he would leave “no stone unturned” in the investigations into prison security and categorisation.
On X, formerly Twitter, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said “we need answers about how on earth a prisoner charged with terror and national security offenses could have escaped in this way.”
The 21-year-old former soldier, who joined the Army in 2019, is believed to have made his escape from London’s Wandsworth prison last Wednesday by holding onto straps underneath a food truck as it left the premises.
Following the discovery of his absence, the British capital promptly became the site of an extensive manhunt, involving over 150 officers. A reward of up to £20,000 had been offered for any information leading to his arrest.
Khalife had been held in the 170-year-old Victorian prison since January on suspicions of having planted fake bombs on a military base and of collecting or disseminating information “that could be useful to an enemy,” (a grave offense under the Official Secrets Act) which authorities believe to be Iran.
In July, Khalife denied the charges leveled against him. His criminal case, to which would now be added the offense of having escaped from a detention center, is scheduled to continue on November 13th.
