LONDON — UK police on Saturday arrested a terror suspect who escaped from a London prison earlier this week, sparking a nationwide manhunt.
“Metropolitan Police officers have arrested Daniel Khalife. Officers apprehended him just before 11 a.m. today in the Chiswick area, and he is currently in police custody,” the force said in a tweet.
The 21-year-old former soldier fled from Wandsworth prison in south London on Wednesday morning, probably by clinging to the bottom of a delivery van.
His disappearance triggered a major hunt with extra security checks introduced at ports and airports amid fears he may try to flee the country.
But following confirmed sightings in southwest London, he was eventually apprehended in the Chiswick neighborhood on Saturday.
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Khalife was reported to have been working in the prison kitchen when he absconded.
Undated handout photo issued by the Metropolitan Police of Daniel Abed Khalife, 21, who went missing from HMP Wandsworth on Wednesday, September 6, 2023. (Metropolitan Police via AP)
He last appeared in court in London on January 28 and was remanded in custody over two incidents at the Royal Air Force base in Stafford, central England, near the army barracks where he lived.
He is accused of “attempting to elicit information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism” in August 2021.
According to the BBC, Khalife is accused of trying to gather information for Iran.
He was also charged with a bomb hoax by placing a suspect device at the RAF base on January 2 this year.
His trial at Woolwich Crown Court — attached to Belmarsh prison — had been set to begin on November 13.
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