Alleged spy Daniel Khalife seems to be a slow cyclist

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Micheal Commane

Due to illness I’ve been out of action for some weeks and most likely feeling sorry for myself. It meant I have been watching far too much television.  It can’t be good for me.

The escape of Daniel Khalife from London’s Wandsworth prison caught my attention and I became fascinated with the story from the moment it became public knowledge on the Wednesday until he was captured the following Saturday morning.

He was on remand for allegedly placing a hoax bomb and spying for an enemy state. He escaped tying himself underneath a food delivery truck.

All of what I have learned in the media about the escape, the escapee, his alleged crimes and his capture have set me thinking.

Daniel Khalife is 21, still a very young man. He joined the British Army at 16. When I heard that I thought I had misheard, but no. Imagine one can join the British Army as a child. That an army would take recruits at 16 can’t be right. It’s 18 in Russia.

It has been reported that Daniel was the finest athlete in his school, holds the school record for the fastest 100 metres. A former school friend said about him that he was intelligent. I’m asking myself why he left school at such a young age.

I also heard an army colleague say that he loved playing practical jokes on people. He looks an extremely fit person, indeed he looks a charming young man.

With the surname Khalife obviously his family somewhere back along the line is not English. I have seen or read nothing about his family background.

I am well aware to plant a hoax bomb is a crime but he is still an innocent man until found guilty in a court of law, which means he is on remand in prison.

The media have said that the enemy state he was allegedly spying for is Iran. I keep asking myself would the Islamic Republic of Iran employ a 21-year-old, who left school at 16 to spy for them. Maybe they would. 

He was captured the following Saturday morning cycling a bicycle along a canal towpath approximately 10 kilometres from Wandsworth prison, from where he had escaped. When I heard that I was greatly surprised. It all sounds mysterious to me. 

Politicians and the  media have been talking about problems in the prison service in Britain, yes, obviously there are. It sounds strange that a Category 

A prisoner was in Wandsworth and that he was working in a ‘plush' kitchen job. 

What I find mysterious about it all is that 75 hours after a most daring, ingenious, indeed simple method of letting himself out the main door of the prison he is caught cycling a bicycle. 

If he were spying for Iran surely the Iranians would have been able to have got him to a safe house. Would they have left him on a bicycle 75 hours later within 10 kilometres from where he had escaped. 

What do I know about the world of spy-craft? Why do I keep thinking there is more to this story than we have been told?