LONDON — A former British soldier going through terrorism fees who snuck out of a London prison on a meals supply truck was once captured Saturday, police stated.
Daniel Abed Khalife was once nabbed while riding a bicycle alongside a canal trail west of London after a four-day manhunt.
Khalife escaped from the Wandsworth Prison kitchen Wednesday and were given out of doors the gates by way of strapping himself to the ground of a catering truck.
Khalife, 21, was once anticipating trial on fees of violating Britain’s Official Secrets Act by way of accumulating information “that could be useful to an enemy” and planting fake bombs at a military base. He was discharged from the British army after his arrest earlier this year and denied the allegations. His trial is set for November.
The breakout ignited a storm of criticism as political opponents linked the escape to years of financial austerity by the United Kingdom’s governing Conservative Party. The government said an independent investigation would determine how Khalife escaped the medium-security prison that opened in 1851 during the reign of Queen Victoria.
“We need answers about how on earth a prisoner charged with terror & national security offences could have escaped in this way,” Yvette Cooper, a member of the Labour Party within the House of Commons, wrote on social media Saturday.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak thanked the police and public and said the inquiry would get to the bottom of how Khalife got away.
The escape prompted extra security checks at major transport hubs, particularly in and around the Port of Dover, the main boat crossing from England to France, and led to the shutdown of a major highway at one point.
London counter-terror police had offered a 20,000 pound ($25,000) reward for information leading to his arrest. It was not immediately clear if anyone was in line for the reward.
Police on Friday had announced a breakthrough in the search after a witness reported seeing Khalife at a busy intersection near the prison shortly after the escape.
Metropolitan Police’s counterterrorism commander Dominic Murphy wouldn’t say if the sighting was confirmed by surveillance cameras, but London has one of the most robust security camera networks in the world and any footage could have helped track his whereabouts.
“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,” Murphy said. “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.”
Police had gained experiences he was once observed within the Chiswick space of west London they usually descended there on Saturday morning, with police automobiles and vehicles swarming the realm and helicopters soaring overhead.
Paul Wade stated he opened his curtains to seek out 5 law enforcement officials out of doors his house.
“They stated ‘I expect you know why we are here,’” he said. “They were checking everybody’s gardens.”
But Khalife was once nowhere close to there when a plainclothes officer in the long run made the collar within the overdue morning, Murphy stated.
Khalife was once pulled off a bicycle alongside the canal close to the group of Northolt, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the place he escaped.
Murphy stated he was once cooperative when arrested. He now faces further fees of being unlawfully at-large and being an escaped prisoner.
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Jill Lawless contributed to this document.
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