Bin Laden was "a shy, courteous boy" - ex-teacher (2001)
Osama bin Laden was a quiet and shy pupil, according to a British teacher who taught him English at an elite Saudi Arabian school.
Brian Fyfield-Shayler told Britain's Sun newspaper that the boy, who grew into the world's most wanted man, behaved well, completed all his work on time, and was not particularly religious.
"I remember him as quiet, retiring and rather shy," Fyfield-Shayler, 69, was quoted as saying. "He was very courteous - more so than any of the others in his class."
Bin Laden, son of a wealthy Saudi industrialist, was in Fyfield-Shayler's class with 30 other boys during 1968 and 1969.
At the time of the report (2001), he was the prime suspect behind the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.
"Physically, he was outstanding because he was taller, handsome and fairer than most of the other boys," the ex-teacher said. "He also stood out as he was singularly gracious and polite, and had a great deal of inner confidence."
Fyfield-Shayler, then retired and living in southwest England, suggested that the Western-style education at the school may have sown the seeds of alienation in bin Laden.
"I'm pretty sure that looking back at a school like that, he would have decided it was rather alien," he said, noting the Western-style uniforms of white shirts and black trousers.
However, he did not remember his former pupil as particularly devout. "There were students in each class who were always the first to rush off to prayer. But he wasn't one of them."