UK police hunt ex-soldier

British police said they had
issued an urgent appeal to find a former soldier suspected of
terrorism offences who went on the run after escaping from a
London prison on Wednesday.
Daniel Abed Khalife, 21, who was being held in prison while
he awaited trial, is believed to have escaped from HMP
Wandsworth shortly before 8 a.m. (0700 GMT), London police said
in a statement.
The BBC and other media reported he had been working in the
kitchens of the jail and had got out by strapping himself to the
bottom of a food delivery van.
An alert was issued by police to Britain’s ports and
airports, including London Heathrow, where travellers faced
delays because of additional security checks.
“Due to a police matter, there are currently enhanced
checks on outbound traffic at the Port of Dover and other
portals within the UK,” the busy port, Britain’s main gateway to
Europe, said in a statement.
Police advised the public not to approach Khalife, who is
6ft 2ins tall (1.88 m) and was wearing a white T-shirt, red and
white chequered trousers and brown steel toe cap boots.
“We have a team of officers who are making extensive and
urgent enquiries in order to locate and detain Khalife as
quickly as possible,” said Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the
London police’s Counter Terrorism Command.
“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.”
Khalife, who was based at barracks in central England at the
time of the alleged offences, is accused of eliciting or trying
to elicit information “likely to be useful to a person
committing or preparing an act of terrorism”.
He was also charged with making a bomb hoax by placing
three canisters with wires on a desk “with the intention of
inducing in another a belief that the said article was likely to
explode or ignite”.
Police later added an offence of obtaining information which
might be “directly or indirectly useful to an enemy” in
contravention of the Official Secrets Act.
He was discharged from the army in May, the defence
ministry said.