The leader of the July 7 bombers tried to convert a schoolboy under his care to Islam and talked to him about the September 11 attacks, the inquest into the bombings has heard.
Mohammed Sidique Khan was working as a learning mentor in a primary school in Beeston, Leeds, when he took the pupil under his wing.
The inquest was told about the background of the bombers and how they became radicalised for the first time, starting with Sidique Khan. He was said to be well liked at Hillside Primary School by parents, staff and pupils and was described as “almost like a father” to those from broken homes.
“One pupil became quite close to him and Khan would take him around to his associates and try to interest him in the Muslim faith,” Hugo Keith QC, counsel for the inquest said.
Acting Det Insp Peter Sparks explained how the boy was taken to the Iqra bookshop in Beeston, which Sidique Khan and others used as somewhere to sell Islamic literature, use computers and talk about Islam.
“Khan had tried to persuade [the pupil] on numerous occasions to convert to Islam,” Mr Sparks said.
The child was as young as 11 or 12 when Sidique Khan told him “people will pay for what has been done to Pakistan” along with comments about September 11.
Gareth Paterson, representing some of the bereaved families, said Sidique Khan was mentoring children with behavioural problems.
“Children described as disaffected children — in a sense, vulnerable children,” he added. He was said to have no formal qualifications for the job but had been working with young people from July 1997.
On another occasion, Sidique Khan was asked if he could arrange a speaker for the school to talk about the Koran, but the man talked with such “fervour” that staff became concerned. His fellow bomber, Shehzad Tanweer, was also involved in taking the pupil to the bookshop, the inquest heard.
The other bombers – Jermaine Lindsay and Hasib Hussain, who both met Sidique Khan when still in their teens – showed signs of radicalism while still at school.
Lindsay was “trying to convert pupils with great enthusiasm and vigour” at school in Huddersfield and got into trouble for distributing leaflets supporting al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.