A woman said she spoke to terror suspect Daniel Khalife about the weather before he was captured.
Daniel Khalife, 21, was finally arrested and taken into police custody after he was found north-west London on Saturday (9 September) after four days on the run from Wandsworth prison.
"Officers apprehended him just before 11am today in the Chiswick area, and he is currently in police custody," the police said in a statement.
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He was found by undercover officers on a canal towpath in west London, where he was dragged off a bicycle and apprehended.
The Met said Khalife had been arrested on suspicion of being unlawfully at large and being an escaped prisoner.
Before he was found, he reportedly had a brief conversation with one of the locals.
The woman, who lives in Chiswick, told BBC News, she believes she spoke to him as he sat on a bench in Chiswick House Gardens on Friday morning.
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After commenting on the hot weather, the woman said the man said he had just come out of the army. He was affectionate towards her dog and was ‘gentle’ and ‘sweet’.
Khalife reportedly laughed as he was arrested shortly after a plain-clothes police officer pulled him off a bike on a canal towpath.
In footage obtained by The Sun, Khalife can be seen sitting in handcuffs next to a sleeping bag and a Waitrose cool bag.
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Cdr Dominic Murphy, head of Counter Terrorism Command, reported that Khalife was ‘fully co-operative’ as he was handcuffed.
After the former soldier escaped from Wandsworth Prison on Wednesday (6 September) he had been spotted walking towards Wandsworth town centre the same day. Police later confirmed sightings of him in Chiswick on Friday night.
Police said on Friday that Khalife had been spotted emerging from underneath a lorry at Wandsworth roundabout shortly after he escaped.
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Detectives searching for Khalife scoured Richmond Park, which isn’t far from HMP Wandsworth and had performed an ‘intelligence-led search at a residential premises’ in the Richmond area.
Khalife had been working in the prison’s kitchen and was dressed in a cook’s uniform when he vanished. It is believed that he held onto straps on the underside of a truck to escape.
The terror suspect is accused of attempting to spy for an enemy state, which the BBC said it understands to be Iran, by obtaining information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism and plotting a fake bomb hoax.
Khalife was at Wandsworth prison on remand pending a trial in November after being denied bail at a court hearing in January.
Topics: News, UK News, Daniel Khalife
Gregory Robinson