Daniel Khalife, Accused of Terrorism, Faces Charges for Escape from Prison

Daniel Abed Khalife was charged on Sunday over his prison escape after he was re-captured on Saturday.

The 21-year-old former soldier had been awaiting trial over terror and spying charges before he disappeared from HMP Wandsworth in south London on Wednesday morning and remained at large for a little over three days.

The Metropolitan Police said Khalife was charged with escaping from prison contrary to common law.

He is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday.

Khalife was a computer network engineer with the British Army’s Royal Corps of Signals, he was waiting for a six-week trial scheduled for November when he escaped from the HMP Wandsworth while working in the kitchen before 8 a.m.

The police believed he may have strapped himself under a food delivery lorry.

Police found Khalife shortly after the manhunt entered the fourth day.

Commander Dominic Murphy, the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism chief, said a plainclothes officer who was part of the manhunt saw him on a pushbike on a towpath near to Rowdell Road and managed to pull him off the bike at 10:41 a.m.

Khalife had been “fully co-operative,” he said.

The commander also said if they find out Khalife had help during his escape, those who helped him will “face justice.”

Khalife was first charged in January with two offences, including one under the Terrorism Act 2000.

He was accused of eliciting or attempting to elicit information “about an individual who was or had been a member of His Majesty’s forces which was of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism” on Aug. 2, 2021.

He was also charged over a “bomb hoax” in January this year at his accommodation at the Beacon Barracks, home to several signal regiments.

Khalife allegedly placed “three cannisters with wires at RAF Stafford with the intention of inducing in another a belief that the said article was likely to explode or ignite and thereby cause personal injury or damage to property,” contrary to section 51 of the Criminal Law Act 1977.

In July, a third charge was brought against him under the Official Secrets Act over an alleged “act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state.”

The accusation was that he had “obtained, collected, recorded, published or communicated to any other person articles, notes, documents or information which were calculated to be or might be or were intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy” between May 1, 2019, and Jan. 6, 2022.

Khalife denies all three charges.

His escape has raised questions over the security of HMP Wandsworth. His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor



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