Osama bin Laden was a quiet and shy pupil, a British teacher who taught him English at an elite Saudi Arabian school was quoted.

Brian Fyfield-Shayler told Britain's Sun newspaper the boy who grew into the world's most wanted man behaved well, did 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, joined 30 boys in Fyfield-Shayler's class during 1968 and 1969, the Sun said.

He is now the prime suspect behind last week's 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, now retired and living in southwest England, said he believed the Western-style education at the school may have sewn the seeds of violence in bin Laden.

He and the other boys wore Western-style school uniforms of white shirts, black trousers, shoes and socks.

"I'm pretty sure that looking back at a school like that, he would have decided it was rather alien," Fyfield-Shayler said.

But he did not remember his former pupil as particularly religious. "There were students in each class who were always the first to rush off to prayer. But he wasn't one of them."

(Agencies)