Schoolmate: Khan had bin Laden pic on his notebook
THE London Bridge attacker would parade around high school with a picture of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden stuck on his notebook.
Usman Khan would also meet pals in a cafe and watch videos of the 9/11 Twin Towers devastation, say former schoolmates yesterday, remembering his “weird” behaviour.
Rhys Miller, 29, who was in the year above Khan at Haywood High School in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, posted on Facebook: “Surprise surprise, look who it is, the guy who walked around school with a picture of Osama bin Laden on the front of his planner and used to sit in the corner of the cafe with about 20 of his mates watching videos of the planes going into the Twin Towers! But when anyone spoke up you were told to shut up and not be ‘racist’... blatant red flag.”
Mr Miller told the Mirror: “He didn’t hide the fact he was supporting bin Laden and had his picture on the front of the planner. It was a planner you used to have to put on your desk at the beginning of the lesson so you could write notes down. And he’d have a picture of bin Laden and the Twin Towers, a photograph, a printout.
“I was at school when the Twin Towers happened. I can remember it shocked me that they all had the pictures of bin Laden and clips on their phones, propaganda, of the planes going into the towers.”
After leaving school Khan preached hate in his hometown.
In a TV interview in 2008, after his home was raided by terror cops, Khan said: “I ain’t no terrorist.”
Solicitor Vajahat Sharif, who represented Khan as a teenager, said he was “very shocked” by Friday’s attack, adding: “How did something like this happen?”
Yesterday police were still searching Khan’s flat in Stafford and his parents’ home in Stoke-on-Trent.