Daniel Khalife made 'one major error' which led police to him, says army expert
Fugitive Daniel Khalife made one major error soon after his escape from prison which eventually led police straight to him, an intelligence expert has told the Mirror.
The 21-year-old ex-soldier and suspected terrorist absconded from HMP Wandsworth on Wednesday morning by hiding under a delivery truck, dressed in a chef's uniform. He then spent 75 hours on the run before being spotted on a canal tow path near Chiswick, west London, at around 10.40am on Saturday morning before being tackled by an undercover police officer and arrested.
Colonel Philip Ingram, an ex-British Army intelligence officer, said Khalife being seen walking away from the BidFood van after it stopped near a roundabout in Wandsworth soon after he escaped, was the starting point cops needed. Speaking this evening, he said: "It was only a matter of time before they found him from that point. The clock started ticking.
Daniel Abed Khalife managed to escape from HMP Wandsworth on Wednesday (AP)
Khalife during his time in the Army (Sky News)"It does not take much effort for the police then to start piecing together all the CCTV that they need and everything else, and get witnesses to come forward. And that’s what’s happened. You need a starting point, they had an exact starting point and an exact time, whereas if they hadn’t they would have had to move into every option along the route from the lorry to the police stopping the lorry, which is a much bigger potential set of starting points.
"That was the significant break through." He said Khalife had likely been trying to hide in plain sight, but suggested things may not have been going to plan for him when he was caught. He was detained next to a sleeping bag and some Waitrose groceries, having taken off the distinctive chef's clothes.
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Mr Ingram - who previously told the Mirror cops had a 48-hour window to catch the fugitive - said: "There’s too many not knowns with this, he’s clearly gone to ground for some reason, managed to get a change of clothes. He’s managed to get his hands on a bicycle and other bits and pieces. But we don’t know where he was going or why. He might have thought there’d be less people on a tow path but he wouldn’t have realised the extent of the police operation there was.
Khalife was captured by undercover police near Greenford Canal (SplashNews.com)"The police officer who arrested him would’ve been tipped off that he was coming along the tow path and would have counted down as he was getting closer, so the officer could step out and grab him. It’s a very successful police operation." The expert - who spent over 25 years in the army - said the case was the perfect example of police coming together with the public.
The Met had even offered up to £20,000 to anyone who came forward with information which could lead to an arrest. Commander Dominic Murphy told reporters at a press briefing on Saturday afternoon that police had reports of further sightings in the Church Street and Chiswick Mall area. Last night there was also an intelligence-led search of a residential address. This allowed the scope to quickly narrow to one area of the city before Khalife was halted on Rowdell Road in Northolt.
Mr Ingram said: "It’s the interaction with the public. It highlights security and counter terror is as much a public police partnership as it is just the police’s responsibility. The police will do the final arrest and make sure people are convicted but if the public get involved things can get done more quickly."
CCTV footage of the truck Khalife clung to in order to escape prison (Met Police)He went on to say it is likely Khalife was "working on the principle that moving continuously would make it harder for the find me". However, he added: "He may not have had a proper plan and it got to the point where he was hungry and was just going to get try find some food or move elsewhere."
Asked if it is likely he had help from the outside or had simply run out of options, trying to do it all on his own, Mr Ingram said: "On balance I think he probably has had some help from the outside. It’s even more ambitious if he has done it alone but not impossible. He might not have had help.
"Listening to some of his ex military comrades, he was a guy who liked to fool around, he was a jack the lad. He used his initiative, he had lots of different interests. So theoretically he could’ve done it by himself - but there’s no way he’d get very far. On balance, there’s at least one person who would have helped."
Khalife was being held at HMP Wandsworth while he awaited trial in November (NEIL HALL/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)All the transport hubs across the UK were on alert and police were patrolling potential escape routes. But Mr Igram said it's not clear if Khalife had therefore decided to divert from a hypothetical plan of getting out of London. He was just a few miles from the prison and from where he grew up in Kingston.
"He might have done. [But] five miles in a built up city, there’s a huge amount of areas he can hide in," he said. "And a huge number of areas he can hide in plain sight. Compared to say five miles in an open countryside environment. The fact he only moved a few miles from the prison, I wouldn’t read too much into that. He would have wanted to go to ground somewhere until all the furore died down before he made any bigger moves. And clearly that’s what he did or was trying to do."
Khalife's chef's uniform which he was wearing during the escape (PA)A former military colleague had described to the Mirror yesterday how Khalife was obsessed with the SAS and would go on solo weekend survival excursions during his time serving. But Mr Ingram said this is not likely to have helped him during his time on the run. "It’s very different doing these things on a weekend civilian course and doing it for real," he explained.
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"He won’t have had any specific training and a civilian course doesn’t give you enough experience. It might have emboldened him to think he could do it from a psychological point of view. He wouldn’t have had any massive skills, if he had he wouldn’t have been f***ing around still recognisable as an individual."
Khalife was awaiting trial after being charged with offences relating to terrorism and the Official Secrets Act. He had been previously stationed at Beacon Barracks in Staffordshire while working as a computer network engineer with the Royal Corps of Signals. He had allegedly planted a fake bomb at the RAF base and gathered information that might be useful to terrorists or enemies of the UK.
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