Daniel Abed Khalife arrest: Wandsworth prisoner to appear in court after escaping custody – live updates

Daniel Abed Khalife will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday after being charged with escaping custody at HMP Wandsworth.

He was arrested on a canal towpath in west London at 10.41am on Saturday after being dragged from a pushbike by a plainclothes anti-terrorism officer.

His detention followed a four-day large-scale land and air search after he went missing from prison on Wednesday.

Before his alleged escape, Khalife was in custody at HMP Wandsworth after being charged with terror crimes in January.

Around 40 inmates at HMP Wandsworth have been moved from the Category B prison, the Justice Secretary said yesterday.

The move comes amid outrage over Daniel Abed Khalife’s escape from prison last week.

Alex Chalk told Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that a preliminary investigation at the Victorian prison found appropriate procedures and security staff were in place.

But he said dozens of people in custody had been moved to different locations “out of an abundance of caution” amid questions about why a former soldier accused of a terror crime was not in the maximum security prison.

A prisoner was stabbed to death at HMP Wandsworth just days after Daniel Khalife’s escape, according to the Metropolitan Police.

At around 3:20 p.m. on Sunday, police were called to a report that an inmate had been attacked at the prison.

Officers and London Ambulance Service attended the scene and a 24-year-old was taken to hospital to be treated for a stab wound.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed his condition was not life-threatening and there had been no arrests.

At midday, the 21-year-old was seen “lying on his back” while running along the river.

“It wasn’t until I saw him three hours later and he was wearing the same clothes that it occurred to me that this is the same guy, which is strange,” Mr Noon told Sky News.

Khalife was attacked from his bicycle by a police officer on a canal towpath and then arrested, ending a 75-hour nationwide manhunt.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed that the former soldier was arrested by a plainclothes counter-terrorism officer near Rowdell Road, west London, just before 11am on Saturday morning (September 9) and is currently in their custody.

Justice Minister Alex Chalk said on Sunday that preliminary results of his investigation into the Victorian prison in London showed that appropriate procedures and security staff were in place.

But he said dozens of people in custody had been moved to different locations “out of an abundance of caution” amid questions about why a former soldier accused of a terror crime was not in the maximum security prison.

Mr Chalk told Sky’s Sunday morning with Trevor Phillips: “Out of an abundance of caution, some prisoners there – some in custody – were moved (this week).

“Of course additional resources have flowed into Wandsworth, so there is additional support from the governor, a former governor with particular security experience.

“But also out of an abundance of caution, around 40 prisoners have been moved just as we get to the bottom of what happened in Wandsworth. This is a sensible precautionary measure.”

Discussing the preliminary findings of a review he issued, Mr Chalk said the investigation looked into whether protocols were in place relating to the unloading of food from a delivery van and the search of the delivery vehicle.

“Those protocols were in place, point one,” he said. “And point two: the relevant security personnel were also on site.

“Obviously we have yet to determine whether those protocols were followed.”

He said he would set out the framework of the separate independent investigation “next week” to ensure the conclusions were “rock solid”.

Guy Walters investigates a long series of theatrical prison escapes, while Daniel Khalife earns his place in crime history – alongside members of the IRA, a train robber and a former M16 agent.

Ronnie Biggs, a notorious train robber, also escaped from Wandsworth Prison in 1965. While Biggs did not use a rope, he did use a rope ladder to scale a prison wall that had been knocked over by accomplices.

While his fellow prisoners staged a scuffle to distract the guards, Biggs quickly hurled it over the wall. On the other side was not a boat, but a moving truck, through whose roof Biggs climbed and escaped to freedom.

Although his gang consisted of a group of violent thieves, Biggs enjoyed a certain folk hero status while living in exile in Brazil, from where he eventually returned in 2001 only to be imprisoned again.

Read more about the other famous escapes here

According to the Metropolitan Police, Daniel Khalife has been charged with escaping custody at HMP Wandsworth.

His arrest followed a four-day mass search by land and air after he disappeared from prison on Wednesday.

He will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday September 11 and is charged with:

“On the sixth day of September 2023, he escaped contrary to common law while held in His Majesty’s Prison at Wandsworth and was remanded in custody pending trial as ordered by the Central Criminal Court on July 21, 2023.”

A woman says she sat and chatted with prison escapee Daniel Khalife the day before he was discovered.

Gabriella Lewis told The sun that the 21-year-old revealed at Chiswick House and Garden that he had just left the army and had a badly stitched ear injury.

The 52-year-old handler felt uncomfortable and said she turned to him and said, “Nice day, isn’t it?”, as reported in The sun.

“He replied, ‘I just got out of the army,’ which I thought was a strange way to start a conversation. I just said, ‘Oh. That’s good’.

“I thought if he had just gotten out of the army he might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, so I tried to be nice to him.”

She told it too The sun: “Considering he had been on the run for two days, he didn’t look dirty at all. He actually looked very clean.

“But his ear looked like something was missing or burst. It had stitches, but not like the ones you get from a doctor. It looked like he used blue fishing line.”

After various sightings, a nationwide manhunt conducted by police using helicopters, dogs and back gardens led to officers tracking him down.

Commander Dominic Murphy said on Friday evening that police had conducted an intelligence search of a residential property in the Richmond area.

He said: “We had the helicopter, we had dogs, we had a lot of resources.

“I am aware that there was some concern for residents when they saw police officers attempting to search their homes and in some cases, as I have heard in the media, … their back gardens.

“This was all to locate Daniel Khalife.”

Additional officers were deployed following reports of further sightings in the Church Street and Chiswick Mall area.

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

Daniel Abed Khalife, a former British Army soldier, is said to have used makeshift straps to hold on to a food delivery van while wearing a chef’s uniform to escape HMP Wandsworth.

He was wearing a prison cook’s uniform, consisting of a white T-shirt, red-and-white checkered pants and brown steel-toed boots, police said.

The former Royal Signals soldier, dressed as a cook, evaded guards and cameras as the truck was driven out while holding on with makeshift straps, allowing him to be released from prison within seconds.