Mistakenly released Algerian prisoner Brahim Kaddour Cherif arrested

The 24-year-old wrongly released Algerian prisoner Brahim Kaddour Cherif has been caught and arrested by police officers.

The Met Police announced its officers had arrested Kaddour Cherif on November 7.

In a statement, the Met Police said: “At 11:23hrs on Friday, November 7, a call was received from a member of the public reporting a sighting of a man they believed to be Brahim Kaddour Cherif in the vicinity of Capital City College on Blackstock Road in Islington.

“Cherif was released in error from HMP Wandsworth on Wednesday, October 29. The Met was informed on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 4, and a manhunt was launched.

“The operation has involved the deployment of significant resources, including local officers and also officers from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command.

“Officers responded immediately and at 11:30hrs detained a man matching Cherif’s description.

“His identity was confirmed, and he was arrested for being unlawfully at large. He was also arrested on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker in relation to a previous incident.

“He has been taken into police custody. The Prison Service has been informed.”

Cherif was accidentally freed from HMP Wandsworth in London on October 29, but police were only informed of the mistake on Tuesday, prompting the search.

Cherif was serving a sentence for trespass with intent to steal, but had previously been convicted for indecent exposure.

It is understood he is not an asylum seeker, but is in the process of being deported after he overstayed his visa.

In a statement, the Justice Secretary David Lammy wrote: “I can confirm Brahim Kaddour-Cherif has been recaptured and is back in custody.

“My thanks are with the police and staff at HMPPS who have been working around the clock.

“We inherited a prison system in crisis, and I’m appalled at the rate of releases in error this is causing.

“I’m determined to grip this problem, but there is a mountain to climb which cannot be done overnight.

“That is why I have ordered new tough release checks, commissioned an independent investigation into systemic failures, and begun overhauling archaic paper-based systems still used in some prisons.”

Lammy has faced increasing pressure over his handling of the accidental releases and claims he may have misled Parliament when stepping in for the prime minister during PMQs.

Lammy had refused to answer questions in the Commons on whether further asylum seekers had been mistakenly released from prison since the accidental release of convicted sex offender asylum seeker Hadush Kebatu.

In a post on X, Lammy promised to “leave no stone unturned” as he sought to fix the problem of wrongly released prisoners.

Speaking on Friday morning, government minister Steve Reed defended the justice secretary’s response to the fiasco as Lammy faced condemnation from within government.

“You cannot comment on individual cases when you don’t have all the facts to hand, so he did the right thing,” he said.

“The answer, long-term, is to make sure we have a digital system that can properly track every offender, not the paper-based system we inherited from the previous government, which has so many risks for human error.”

His words echoed that of the prime minister, who spoke yesterday from Cop30 in Brazil.

Speaking to reporters, the PM backed his deputy prime minister, saying: “I’m absolutely clear that he’s setting out the facts, to the best of his knowledge and that’s the right thing for him to do.”

He added: “Let me just say how angry and frustrated I am that these mistakes have been made, they’re intolerable and they shouldn’t be made.”