Daniel Khalife's life in army after childhood with mum and twin in leafy suburb
A former soldier who dressed in a chef's uniform and clung onto a delivery van to escape prison remains the subject of a nationwide manhunt.
Daniel Abed Khalife, 21, was reported to police after escaping from HMP Wandsworth at around 8am on Wednesday. Airports across the nation went into chaos as Border Force agents carried out stringent checks to make sure the former soldier hadn't left the country. His escape has posed serious questions about the suitability of his incarceration at the Category B prison in southwest London.
Daniel Abed Khalife has been awaiting trial on charges of breaching the Official Secrets ActWho is Daniel Abed Khalife?
Khaflie was born in London and is of Middle Eastern heritage. He has a mum and twin sister who lived in Richmond, southwest London, up until a few years ago, it has been reported. A neighbour told The Daily Telegraph: "A woman lived upstairs who had a son and daughter. The boy would come and go swearing loudly. She moved to Wales roughly three years ago – a year after we moved in... It's worrying to think that this young man might head back to this area after escaping from prison." It is unclear if Khalife has any other siblings, though it is believed he was raised in affluent Kingston-upon-Thames, a suburb in the capital's far southwest reaches.
When did he join the Army?
Khalife 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 before his arrest in January. He was based at the Ministry of Defence’s Stafford military base while serving. This base in the Midlands is known as Beacon Barracks.
According to his Linkedin page, Khalife has been a Network Engineer with British Army since September 2018. It also states Khalife's current residency as Stafford and that, in 2021, he completed various computer programming courses. The page lists four skills, all of which are in the computing field.
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What was he charged with?
Khalife was charged with terror offences and charges relating to the Official Secrets Act earlier this year, after he was accused of carrying out a bomb hoax at the RAF base. He is also accused of eliciting or trying to elicit information that could be useful for a terrorist on August 2, 2021, and breaching the Official Secrets Act by gathering information that could be useful to an enemy between May 1, 2019, and January 6, 2022.
The terror suspect fled HMP Wandsworth in London on Wednesday (PA)Where is he?
He was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, red and white chequered trousers and brown steel toe cap boots and he was dressed as a chef during his escape. To get out of Wandsworth prison, Khalife accessed the kitchen, then "strapped himself" to the bottom of a van to escape.
The terror suspect has links to north-west England, according to reports today. All 43 police forces across England and Wales are involved in the huge manhunt. Khalife has described his role on social media as being a computer specialist with skills including information technology and system administration.
Speaking yesterday, Commander Dominic Murphy, the head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command said the team is making "extensive and urgent enquiries" to locate and detain Khalife "as quickly as possible. However, the public can help us as well and should anyone see Khalife, or have any information as to where he might be, then please call 999 or the immediately. I also want to reassure the public that we have no information which indicates, nor any reason to believe that Khalife poses a threat to the wider public, but our advice if you do see him is not to approach him and call 999 straight away."
Professor Ian Acheson, a former head of security at Wandsworth, said Khalife’s escape was “at best” a “catastrophic system failure”. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It’s incredibly embarrassing for the prison service but it’s not entirely surprising given what we know about what’s going on Wandsworth at the moment,” as he said the prison “is in freefall”.
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