Daniel Khalife’s family tell him ‘hand yourself in’ as manhunt for escaped terror suspect enters fourth day
DANIEL Khalife's family told him: "hand yourself in" - as the manhunt for the escaped terror suspect entered its fourth day.
The 21-year-old is still on the run after he fled HMP Wandsworth on Wednesday under a food truck.
He was spotted crawling out from under the lorry on a roundabout - but there has been no trace since then and the Met Police offered a £20,000 reward for information.
Now ex-soldier Khalife's family are begging him to surrender himself to officers.
A close relative told : "If I could talk to him, I would tell him to end this and give himself up - even though I understand he is afraid."
Khalife, whose mother was born in Iran, is charged under the Official Secrets Act with spying for the country.
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But the family member claimed he has only visited Iran twice - once when he was a baby, and again when he was about seven.
The tearful relative said: "Danny doesn’t know Iran, he loves this country.
"Two years ago he was quite happy, he said he never wanted to leave the army - he said they were good people and then something happened last year.
"He was scared to talk about it and so he ran away. I don’t believe the allegations.
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"He spent four years in the army - it is just silly to imagine he would betray them."
Khalife and his twin sister were brought up by their single mum in a flat in Kingston, south west London.
He was estranged from his Lebanese dad for several years after his parents split up - but his father has visited him on remand.
His mum begged him to stay in sixth-form college but instead he decided to join the army as a teen, The Times reports.
Last night The Sun revealed Khalife has specialist military escape and evasion training from his time in the Army.
The Signaller underwent SERE — Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape — training during his service.
The course teaches recruits how to avoid population centres, cameras and main roads — and stay “off-grid” while trying to find friendly forces.
It has led to fears that Khalife — who completed basic infantry training and specialist signals courses —— could be evading police by relying on survival skills he learned in the corps.
A defence source said: “It is only the basic course, but it could be useful to a fugitive from justice.”
Former comrades described Khalife as the “class clown” and a “competent but not exceptional soldier” who was funny and well-liked.
One soldier who served with him said: “He was smart and manipulative and had a knack of making you trust him without realising why.”
Another claimed he was obsessed with SAS and used to go on solo survival weekends.
An ex-comrade at Blandford Camp, Dorset, : “When we did a survival course he really excelled at it.
“He would disappear at the weekend with a few bits of camping gear, spending the night out in the open.
“He really thought that one day he would get into the SAS, using what he learned in training. That was his dream.”
It is thought Khalife made a strap from a plastic mattress cover to fasten himself underneath the Bidfood lorry.
The vehicle left HMP Wandsworth at 7.32am on Wednesday. Khalife was declared missing at 7.50am.
Police were notified at 8.15am and the lorry was stopped at 8.37am.
CCTV footage emerged of the van driving along a busy road in London. - by which time the escapee had already got off.
A member of the public saw a man resembling the terror suspect climbing out from underneath the BidFood delivery van as it stopped near the Wandsworth roundabout, at the top of Trinity Road.
This man was then seen walking towards Wandsworth town centre.
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Earlier, a search focused on Richmond Park, six miles from the Victorian jail.
Cops fear he could now be anywhere in the country or even abroad.
