Terror suspect lastly caught on canal bike trip after 4 intense days on run

An undercover Metropolitan Police officer nabbed the 21-year-old ex-soldier, who was mentioned to have been carrying a sleeping bag and groceries.

He was hauled off the bike at 10.41am and handcuffed, placing up no resistance as he was arrested for being unlawfully at massive.

A witness claimed Khalife had insisted, “It’s not me! I haven’t done anything” as police made the arrest. The witness mentioned the suspect was then handcuffed and held at gunpoint.

“Within a few minutes, three or four plain clothes officers arrived,” he instructed a newspaper. “Then a few minutes after that a small army arrived and taped off the path.

It was obviously a well-planned operation and they must have been ­following him, because the officer was lying in wait for him.

“It’s a relief that they finally have him.” Video footage taken moments after he was captured present him sitting calmly on the bottom, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, together with his arms fixed behind his again.

The space had been busy with individuals out having fun with the recent climate. Khalife, who had fled from Wandsworth Prison in south London, was lastly arrested in Northolt, west London, inset – about 15 miles away.

Commander Dominic Murphy mentioned the pressure will examine if anybody aided him together with his escape and to remain on the run. No one else had been arrested in reference to the investigation final night time.

Mr Murphy mentioned: “We will continue to investigate how he got out and if anyone else may have helped him before, during or after his escape. How he obtained the bike will form part of that inquiry.”

He mentioned counter-terrorism police had labored with intelligence companies from a brand new counter-terror centre in west London. Intelligence had first led officers to look a house in Richmond, south-west London, earlier than repeated sightings in Chiswick within the early hours.

Police swamped the world with helicopters, Territorial Support Group vans, armed models and unmarked police automobiles, whereas officers with sniffer canine had been looking out gardens.

Officers had been seen asking residents for IDs and searching within the boots of automobiles. Resident Paul Wade, 79, mentioned: “They were checking everybody’s gardens. Our neighbour told us there were sniffer dogs.

They just clambered over the walls.” The fugitive was held hours later, only a few miles away. It got here after the pressure put up a £20,000 reward for data.

Khalife, who had been on remand for terrorism offences since January, escaped from the kitchen space of the jail, the place he labored as a cook dinner, on Wednesday at about 7.30am.

He is alleged to have been wearing his chef’s uniform when he was final seen on the jail. He is British with Lebanese heritage and left faculty in 2018.

He then joined the Army and have become a non-public within the Royal Signals Regiment, based mostly at MoD Stafford. Khalife, mentioned to be a survival knowledgeable, was resulting from stand trial in November after ­pleading not responsible in July to an allegation that in August 2021 he obtained details about members of the Armed Forces from the Ministry of Defence Joint Personnel Administration System that would have been helpful in ­making ready an act of terrorism.

He can be accused of a bomb hoax and of a spying offence by committing an act “prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state”, opposite to the Official Secrets Act.

It is alleged that between May 2019 and January 2022, he obtained data helpful to an enemy, believed to be Iran.

Shadow house secretary Yvette Cooper mentioned: “We need answers about how a ­prisoner charged with terror and national security offences could have escaped.”

Wandsworth has been chronically overcrowded for years and specialists declare that would have aided his escape. Francis Pakes, professor of criminology on the University of Portsmouth, mentioned: “It used to be nigh on impossible to escape. I wonder if part of the answer is a combination of overcrowding and understaffing.”

Speaking on BBC Radio 4 yesterday, Conservative former justice secretary Sir Robert Buckland mentioned: “We run the prison service at about 98 percent capacity, and that isn’t desirable.”

Phil Wheatley, a former director basic of the Prisons Service, mentioned of the escape: “It’s very difficult to make anything work well when you are just managing day by day to fumble your way through with too many prisoners and not enough staff.”

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman mentioned: “Generally, remand prisoners are held in Category B reception prisons but risk assessments are carried out to determine the appropriateness of the placement.

“The prison staffing picture is improving. We now have an extra 4,000 prison officers than in March 2017. We have invested £100million since 2019 on measures such as enhanced gate security with scanners.”