A British soldier and terrorism suspect who escaped from jail would have trained for a break out during his time in the army, an expert has claimed.
Daniel Abed Khalife, a serving member of the British Army who is awaiting trial for terror and Official Secrets Act offences, escaped from Wandsworth prison on Wednesday morning, the Metropolitan Police said.
A spokesperson for the Prison Service said they are 'urgently investigating how he escaped', with theories circling that he left via a kitchen and clung onto a van.
READ MORE: Terror suspect escaped jail by 'sneaking out of kitchen and clinging to van'
Mark Leech, managing director of the Prison Oracle, told The Mirror that Khalife will have been trained to escape captivity, and chillingly, trained in how to groom others.
He said: “As a soldier, he will have been trained to escape captivity. As a soldier he will have been aware of how to conduct himself, trained in how to groom others, how to give false impressions, how to spot weaknesses in security and how to fully exploit them as he clearly did here.
“The question is why he was not as a terror suspect detained in Belmarsh – his security classification will have been assessed as Category B and his Escape Risk assessed as low, that is something that in hindsight they will want to review and the investigation will look into that.
“It may well be he was wrongly security classified, detained in the wrong establishment as a result, and his escape risk was not properly assessed – he may well have given the impression to perhaps inexperienced staff who conducted his security categorisation he was far less of a security escape risk than in reality he has proved to be.”
As well as airports, officials have been seen searching cars at Holyhead port in Wales as well as the Port of Dover. Police helicopters and plain clothed cops are also reportedly patrolling the streets of Kingston, London, where Daniel Abed Khalife is known to have connections.
Mr Leech added: “The point to make is escapes are exceptionally rare – but that is in itself often precisely why they then succeed when they do occur.
“The issue is one of routine, coupled with prison staff shortages, perhaps the use of civilian caterers in this case who are not trained prison officers, along with Gate Security procedures that just become routine and which he may well have spotted as being weak when going to and from court.”
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