Former soldier arrested in Chiswick four days after fleeing Wandsworth Prison. Former soldier Daniel Abed Khalife has been jailed after he escaped HMP Wandsworth and spent nearly four days on the run. Khalife, 23, snuck out of the Category B prison by clinging onto the bottom of a food catering truck with a sling made from kitchen trousers. The highly-publicised nationwide manhunt ended in his arrest on a canal path by the Thames river in September 2023.

The 23-year-old admitted to the prison escape partway through his trial at Woolwich Crown Court. He was later convicted of charges contrary to the Official Secrets Act and Terrorism Act in November last year, but cleared of carrying out a bomb hoax. He was sentenced to 14 years and three months imprisonment at the same court on Monday. Khalife first planned a fake escape for 21 August in a bid to be moved to a high-security unit (HSU). He told jurors that he wanted to be kept in the HSU at HMP Belmarsh in the belief that he would be safer there.

But after the fake escape was not reported to senior prison staff, Khalife decided a real escape was his only option, the court heard. After prison staff alerted the force to the missing 21-year-old at 7.50am on Wednesday 6 September, a national search ensued over the next three-to-four days, which The Independent has shown on a map. More than 150 Met officers and staff, as well as colleagues from forces across the country, worked “at pace around the clock” in pursuit of the terror suspect, receiving over 100 calls from members of the public.

A Bidfood van was stopped and searched by police just after 8.30am on the Upper Richmond Road in Putney. Officers discovered the strapping used by Khalife in his escape on the bottom of the vehicle. “When the tail lift raised it covered me entirely,” Khalife told jurors in court. “If the makeshift sling wasn’t noticed, they’re hardly going to notice me.”. Richmond Park was scoured by police on the night of Thursday 7 September and into Friday, with helicopters seen circling overhead and sirens blaring in the area for hours.

Later on Friday, the Met confirmed a member of the public reported seeing Khalife walking away from a Bidfood van near Wandsworth Roundabout shortly after his escape from prison. Police helicopters spent Friday night circling around the Thames in west London, with flight radar maps revealing one flying over Chiswick House and Grove Park. The force then said earlier on Saturday 9 September that it would be focusing its search in Chiswick on Saturday after confirmed sightings in the area overnight.

Some 75 hours after escaping with the food truck, the Metropolitan Police confirmed the former soldier was arrested by officers in Chiswick just before 11am on Saturday, a mere 45-minute drive away from the prison he fled on Wednesday morning. Prior to his initial arrest in January 2023, the 21-year-old had formerly been a serving soldier in the British Army since 2018 and had worked as a computer network engineer with the Royal Corps of Signals.