Daniel Abed Khalife charged with escaping from Wandsworth Prison

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Daniel Khalife has been charged with escaping from custody at HMP Wandsworth, the Metropolitan Police have said.

Khalife, 21, was dramatically arrested on Saturday in the northwest London suburb of Northolt.

His capture followed a mass land and air search over four days after he went missing from the prison on Wednesday.

He will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday 11 September charged as follows:

“On the sixth day of September 2023, then being a prisoner in His Majesty’s prison at Wandsworth, being remanded in custody pending trial as ordered at the Central Criminal Court on the 21st day of July 2023, escaped, contrary to common law.”

Khalife was arrested on a towpath near Rowdell Road, Northolt on Saturday 9 September following a policing operation led by officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command.

After a mass land and air search aided by the security services, Khalife was detained on suspicion of being unlawfully at large and being an escaped prisoner at 10.41am on Saturday after being pulled off a push bike by a plain-clothed counter terrorism officer.

He was arrested on a canal towpath in west London, around eight miles from where he was last seen by a member of the public.

Khalife was “fully cooperative” as he was handcuffed, with some reports claiming he was “laughing” as he was arrested.

Police have not had a claim for the £20,000 reward yet.

Justice Secretary, Alex Chalk said on Sunday that the preliminary findings of his investigation into London’s Victorian jail have found that the relevant procedures and security staff were in place.

But he said dozens of individuals on remand have been moved to different sites “out of an abundance of caution” amid questions over why a former soldier accused of a terror offence was not in the highest security prison.

Mr Chalk told Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “Out of an abundance of caution, some prisoners there – some of those on remand – have been moved (this week).

“Additional resources have, of course, gone into Wandsworth, so there’s additional governor support, a former governor with particular expertise in security.

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

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

“Those protocols were in place, point one,” he said. “And point two, the relevant security staff were also in place.

“Plainly what we’ve yet to establish is whether those protocols were followed.”

He said he will set out “next week” the terms of reference of the separate independent investigation to ensure that the conclusions are “rock solid”.

Mr Chalk, a former barrister, told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg that “in recent years there has been huge investment” amid claims that the Conservative’s austerity drive has decayed the prisons estate.

Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor has said that Wandsworth, opened in 1851, “really needs closing”, having been given a rating of “serious concern” in official annual reports as far back as in 2016-17.

It comes after an inmate was in a critical condition after being stabbed at HMP Wandsworth on Sunday afternoon. It is believed the incident broke out between two prisoners and police were called to the scene at 3.20pm.

The Met Police said no arrests have been made and enquiries are ongoing.

In reference to the Khalife investigation, the Met’s counter-terrorism boss Commander Dominic Murphy told reporters on Saturday: “In terms of the investigation, it really gathered momentum yesterday afternoon, with a number of calls from the public, but really took a different course last night, when we did an intelligence-led search in the Richmond area in the early hours of this morning.

“Whilst we didn’t find him at that search, while we were at that search, we had a number of calls from the public over the next hour or two, giving us various sightings of him.”

Khalife was awaiting trial after allegedly planting a fake bomb at an RAF base and gathering information that might be useful to terrorists or enemies of the UK.