Daniel Abed Khalife: Wandsworth prison – where fugitive escaped from – ‘really needs closing’, says chief inspector
The jail from which terror suspect Daniel Abed Khalife escaped “really needs closing ultimately”, the chief inspector of prisons has said.
Speaking to Sky News’ Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge, Charlie Taylor said there was a “crisis” in large institutions like Wandsworth prison in south London due to a lack of places and staff, and the “churn” of inmates “adds to the general complications and sometimes what feels like chaos”.
His remarks come as the manhunt continues for 21-year-old Khalife, who broke out of the Category B prison by holding on to straps underneath a food truck.
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There have still been no confirmed sightings of the former soldier and police have said it is possible he has already left the country – though more than 150 counterterrorism officers and staff are focusing their search efforts in the Kingston and Staffordshire areas.
The incident soon turned into a political row, with Labour attacking the government for a lack of investment into public services – a hot topic in Westminster following the concrete crisis in schools.
But ministers have accused the opposition of playing politics, and promised to open formal inquiries into the escape.
Daniel Abed Khalife escaped Wandsworth Prison on Wednesday
Mr Taylor – who is appointed by the justice secretary to inspect prisons in both England and Wales – said the situation with Khalife was “enormously concerning”.
“When you find a prison like Wandsworth, it really needs closing ultimately, it is not a suitable prison,” he told Politics Hub.
“In an ideal world one would [close it], but of course you need jails because you need to service the courts.
“We’ve actually got a crisis at the moment in prisons just in terms of population and places, so there are only just enough prison places available at the moment for the number of prisoners who are coming in, but of course that puts a huge strain on the system.”
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How prisoner’s escape unfolded
Speaking specifically about Wandsworth, the chief inspector added: “You are getting people in, you are getting them to court, you are getting them back from court and then as soon as they’ve been sentenced, they are being moved on to another jail as quickly as possible.
“And it is something about that churn that also adds to the general complications and sometimes what feels like chaos in some of those big local prisons like Wandsworth.”
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’10 times more escapes under Labour’
Mr Taylor also pointed to issues around staffing levels at the prison, which he said had been a “huge concern” in recent inspections – with 30% of employees unavailable for full duties.
He claimed it led to a “danger of losing control”, adding: “If you haven’t got enough staff to get the basics right, there is always a danger that people will drop the ball and make a mistake.
“If there aren’t enough staff in place – and that is something we flag up a lot – things just can begin to go a bit wrong.”
Read more:
No confirmed sightings of prison fugitive despite dozens of calls from public
What life is like at HMP Wandsworth
What we know about terror suspect
The chief inspector also claimed Wandsworth, which was built 170 years ago, was in a “real state” and was not designed to hold “nearly as many men who are locked up there as there are now”.
He added: “The issue is these people are coming out one day and the idea that you are rehabilitating people by banging them up behind a door for 22 hours a day is simply fanciful.”
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Wandsworth: ‘There were already damning reports’
Mr Taylor appealed to the government to look into funding to improve prisons – although he accepted it may not be the first priority for the public.
“If you ask people if they would like more money spent on the NHS or on schools or on roads, or money to be spent on prisons, I think it is fairly obvious what the answer would be,” he added. “People don’t like prisoners so much and they are frightened of crime.
“[But] if we want people to come out from prison and to stop offending, then we need to do more for them when they are locked up, which means giving them the skills they need, it means putting them on the right sort of programmes, it means getting them into the good habits of work so when they come out they don’t create more victims, they don’t cause trouble in their communities and they take their place back in society as hard working tax working people.
“At the moment what we are seeing is just that churn, that revolving door of those people in and out of prison often for many many years.”
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Lawmakers in the US states of Minnesota and Alabama filed companion bills to identical existing bills that if passed into law, would allow each state to buy Bitcoin.
The Minnesota Bitcoin Act, or HF 2946, was introduced to the state’s House by Republican Representative Bernie Perryman on April 1, following an identical bill introduced on March 17 by GOP state Senator Jeremy Miller.
Meanwhile, on the same day in Alabama, Republican state Senator Will Barfoot introduced Senate Bill 283, while a bi-partisan group of representatives led by Republican Mike Shaw filed the identical House Bill 482, which allows for the state to invest in crypto, but essentially limits it to Bitcoin (BTC).
Twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly name Bitcoin
Minnesota’s Bitcoin Act would allow the state’s investment board to invest state assets in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and permit state employees to add crypto to retirement accounts.
It would also exempt crypto gains from state income taxes and give residents the option to pay state taxes and fees with Bitcoin.
Source: Bitcoin Laws
The twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly identify Bitcoin, but would limit the state’s crypto investment into assets that have a minimum market value of $750 billion, a criterion that only Bitcoin currently meets.
26 Bitcoin reserve bills now introduced in the US
Introducing identical bills is not uncommon in the US and is typically done to speed up the bicameral legislative process so laws can pass more quickly.
Bills to create a Bitcoin reserve have been introduced in 26 US states, with Arizona currently the closest to passing a law to make one, according to data from the bill tracking website Bitcoin Laws.
Arizona currently leads in the US state Bitcoin reserve race. Source: Bitcoin Laws
Pennsylvania was one of the first US states to introduce a Bitcoin reserve bill, in November 2024. However, the initiative was reportedly eventually rejected, with similar bills also killed in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.
Related: North Carolina bills would add crypto to state’s retirement system
Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wyoming are the five states thathave rejected Bitcoin reserve initiatives. Source: Bitcoin Laws
According to a March 3 report by Barron’s, “red states” like Montana have faced setbacks to the Bitcoin reserve initiatives amid political confrontations between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
Additional reporting by Helen Partz.
Magazine: Financial nihilism in crypto is over — It’s time to dream big again
Update (April 3, 5:43 am UTC): This article has been updated to add information on the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act.
The US House Financial Services Committee has passed a Republican-backed stablecoin framework bill, which will now head to the House floor for a full vote.
The Committee passed the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy, or STABLE Act, with a 32-17 vote on April 2, with six Democrats voting in favor.
The bill was introduced on Feb. 6 by committee Chair French Hill and the chair of its Digital Assets Subcommittee, Bryan Steil — reportedly drafted with the help of the world’s largest stablecoin issue, Tether.
Source: Financial Services GOP
The bill would provide rules around payment stablecoins, a crypto token tied to a currency such as the US dollar, and aims to ensure issuers give information about their business and how they back their tokens.
During an earlier markup session, the committee’s leading Democrat, Maxine Waters, who later voted against the bill, criticized her Republican peers for “setting an unacceptable and dangerous precedent” with the STABLE Act.
She said President Donald Trump could use the bill to allow his family’s stablecoin to be used in government payments, and argued the bill validates Trump “and his insiders’ efforts to write rules of the road that will enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.”
In late March, the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture launched a stablecoin, World Liberty Financial USD (USD1). Meanwhile, the US Housing Department, which oversees social housing, was reportedly looking to experiment with using stablecoins for some of its functions.
Stablecoin GENIUS Act also weaves through Congress
Other stablecoin-related bills are also working their way through Congress, including the Republican-led Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act, which lays out oversight and reserve rules for issuers.
Related: Crypto has a regulatory capture problem in Washington — or does it?
The US Senate Banking Committee voted through the GENIUS Act in an 18-6 vote on March 13, after Senator Bill Hagerty, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, updated it following consultation with the Committee’s Democrats.
Before the vote, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said the updated GENIUS Act made “significant improvements to a number of important provisions” in areas such as consumer protections and authorized stablecoin issuers.
Both the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act will now wait until debate time on the floor of the House and Senate, respectively, before they head for a floor vote.
Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported on X that two unnamed crypto lobbyists said there is likely to be “a coordinated push behind the scenes over the next few weeks to get the two bills to mirror each other, as there are still some differences between them.”
Doing so would “avoid having to set up a so-called conference committee which is formed so members from both chambers can negotiate to create a final version of the bill everyone agrees on,” she added.
Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025
Tulip Siddiq has told Sky News her “lawyers are ready” to handle any formal questions about allegations she is involved in corruption in Bangladesh.
Asked whether she regrets apparent links with the Bangladeshi Awami League political party, Ms Siddiq said “why don’t you look at my legal letter and see if I have any questions to answer… [the Bangladeshi authorities] have not once contacted me and I’m waiting to hear from them”.
The London MP resigned as a Treasury minister in January after being named in several corruption inquiries in Bangladesh.
In her first public comments since leaving government, Ms Siddiq said “there’s been allegations for months on end and no one has contacted me”.
Last month, the interim leader of Bangladesh told Sky News the MP had “wealth left behind” in the country “and should be made responsible”.
Lawyers acting for Ms Siddiq wrote to the Bangladeshi Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) several weeks ago saying the allegations were “false and vexatious”.
The letter said the ACC must put questions to Ms Siddiq “by no later than 25 March 2025” or “we shall presume that there are no legitimate questions to answer”.
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Staff from the NCA visited Bangladesh as part of initial work to support the interim government in the country.
In a post online today, the former minister said the deadline had expired and the authorities had not replied.
Sky News has approached the Bangladeshi government for comment.
The allegations against Ms Siddiq are focused on links to her aunt Sheikh Hasina – who served as the prime minister of Bangladesh for 20 years.
Ms Hasina was forced to flee the country in August following weeks of deadly protests.
She is accused of becoming an autocrat, with politically-motivated arrests, extra-judicial killings and other abuses allegedly happening on her watch. Hasina claims it’s all a political witch hunt.
Electrocuted on their genitals and mouths sewn up: Inside Bangladesh’s ‘death squad’ jails
Ms Siddiq was found to have lived in several London properties that had links back to the Awami League political party that her aunt still leads.
She referred herself to the prime minister’s standards adviser Sir Laurie Magnus who said he had “not identified evidence of improprieties” but added it was “regrettable” Ms Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt.
Ms Siddiq said continuing in her role would be “a distraction” for the government but insisted she had done nothing wrong.
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