Search the Internet          Tips  Links: Terror in America

Osama was immaculately well-behaved: Teacher

A British teacher who taught a teenaged Osama bin Laden in Saudi Arabia is surprised that his student today is one of the most wanted terrorists in the world.

Brian Fyfield-Shayler, 69, remembers bin Laden as "very shy" and "extraordinarily polite" student.

Fyfield-Shayler told Britain's GMTV television that bin Laden, then aged 13, was "immaculately" well-behaved.

"Not the top of his class, but not bottom -- somewhere in the middle. That does not mean to say he was middling. He was at one of the top two schools and that would put him in the top 50 or 60 students of his age in the country."

Fyfield-Shayler, then head of English at al-Thaghr, an elite western-style Saudi school in Jeddah, taught bin Laden for a year from 1968.

The Attack on America: The Complete Coverage

EXTERNAL LINK
For Further Coverage and Information, you may visit www.saja.org/roundup

Back to top

Tell us what you think of this report