Exclusive
GOT HIM
‘Terrorist’ Daniel Khalife ‘laughed & winked’ after being arrested by armed cops who yelled ‘don’t move or we’ll shoot’
TERROR suspect Daniel Khalife glares at police as he is dramatically captured after four days on the run.
Our exclusive picture shows the ex-soldier handcuffed after a huge manhunt.
5
5
5
Undercover cops dragged him off a bicycle and wrestled him to the ground on a canal towpath yesterday.
Khalife, 21 — who escaped from Wandsworth jail — was caught 12 miles away in Northolt, West London.
Plain-clothes police yelled “Don’t move or we’ll shoot” as they finally caught jailbreak terror suspect Daniel Khalife yesterday.
The ex-soldier laughed at cops and winked at passers-by as he was cuffed following four days on the run.
READ MORE ON DANIEL KHALIFE
Officers hid on a grassy verge behind a wall near a canal towpath before pouncing at 10.41am.
They dragged him off a bicycle, believed to be stolen, wrestled him to the floor then pinned him against the underside of a bridge.
It brought to an end one of the biggest police searches in recent years — involving 150 anti-terror cops and an all-ports alert.
Khalife had appeared like any normal cyclist pedalling in the sunshine next to the Grand Union Canal in Northolt, West London — 12 miles from Wandsworth Prison, which he escaped on Wednesday.
Most read in The Sun
Wearing a T-shirt, shorts and trainers, he also had a sleeping bag, change of clothes, bottle of water and a Waitrose cool bag which appeared to contain food.
It was unclear how he managed to get the items, and if he had help.
Student Ethan Andrews, 20, witnessed the arrest and asked officers if it was the same man he had seen in news reports.
He said: “The guy looked up at me, winked and started laughing. I thought, how arrogant is that?
“I can’t believe he was just sitting there, looked at me and just winked.”
Laughing can be heard in a video taken by Ethan of Khalife sitting on the ground surrounded by officers.
Another witness said Khalife tried to claim he was innocent and said: “It’s not me. I haven’t done anything.”
An exclusive photo obtained by The Sun on Sunday shows Khalife staring at onlookers while being led to a van at 11.20am.
Another witness said: “He showed no emotion and didn’t say a word.
“By that point he looked resigned and was led away pretty easily.
“There were plenty of police officers around him so there was no chance he was getting away.”
Met counter-terrorism boss Commander Dominic Murphy said more than 150 of his officers had been involved in catching Khalife.
He said the fugitive was “fully co-operative and handcuffed and arrested”.
Khalife, formerly in the Royal Signals, had been on the run for 75 hours after strapping himself to the bottom of a food delivery lorry at the jail.
He was wearing a prison-issue chef’s uniform at the time.
Tonight he was in custody on suspicion of being unlawfully at large and being an escaped prisoner.
On Friday night the search was narrowed to Chiswick, West London, amid two reported sightings of Khalife — the last in Church Street near the Thames.
Officers were seen going door-to-door to search gardens, inspect car boots and ask residents for their IDs.
More than 100 calls had been made to police with tips and possible sightings, after Scotland Yard offered a £20,000 reward for information.
Albin Berglund, 42, said officers were looking at a tree outside his house on Chiswick Mall for over half an hour at 3.30am.
He said: “Around five officers and a dog were looking in my neighbours garden and at the large tree.
“It seemed like they think he had climbed the tree to get into the next garden along.”
Resident Francis Hutchings, 26, was woken by a knock from a plain-clothes officer who told him sniffer dogs had picked up a scent in the alley behind his house.
He said police searched his garden before moving on.
Police had been searching Richmond Park on Thursday.
Cmdr Murphy added of the investigation: “It’s been about 75 hours since he went missing from the prison to the point of his arrest. That’s pretty quick given the challenge of trying to find this individual.
“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.
“Whilst we didn’t find him at that search, while we were there we had a number of calls over the next hour or two, giving us various sightings of him.”
Ex-Met detective Peter Bleksley said the fact Khalife managed to travel only 12 miles in four days showed it was unlikely that he was helped by a wider network.
Bleksley said: “As police were lying in wait, they clearly knew his direction of travel and his mode of travel. They set a trap and he cycled right into it.
“In four days, he didn’t get very far. To me that would suggest that although there was pre-planning inside the prison, he didn’t have anybody out on his side.
“Where he got his clothes and sleeping bag from will become part of the investigation. I don’t think he had a plan and lived on his wits — which ultimately meant he was doomed to failure. The only criminals who stay on the run for a considerable amount of time have a support network on the outside.”
Speaking to broadcasters at the G20 summit in New Delhi, PM Rishi Sunak said: “I’m very pleased with the news and my thanks to the police officers for their fantastic work over the past couple of days.
“Also to the public who came forward with an enormous number of leads to help the police.”
An investigation is under way as to how Khalife broke out of the Category B prison given he was charged under the Official Secrets Act with trying to pass information to a hostile state, and with leaving a hoax bomb at his military base.
Sources told The Sun on Sunday that Khalife had bragged to other prisoners that he had attempted the escape around ten days earlier but abandoned it after the straps broke.
He is believed to have then made the material stronger before breaking out on Wednesday.
The Ministry of Justice would not comment on the investigation. Home Secretary Suella Braverman: “Terrorism suspect Daniel Khalife has been tracked down and brought back into custody thanks to the determined work of our police and intelligence partners.
“I want to thank the Metropolitan Police, our agencies and Border Force for their work on this massive operation to ensure that this fugitive will now rightly face the full force of the law.”
Justice Secretary Alex Chalk said: “With Khalife now in custody, the legal process must be allowed to take its course.
“I will leave no stone unturned in getting to the bottom of how this serious breach was possible. Incidents like this are very rare.”
READ MORE SUN STORIES
It was not clear where Khalife was being held last night.
He was likely to end up in a Category A jail such as Belmarsh in South East London.
5
5
Topics