Essex pupil 'linked to terror raid'

A former Essex student has links to an extremist Islamic group who carried out this week's murder of four Indian guards at the American Centre in Calcutta, it was claimed today.

Ahmed Omar Sheik, 27, who was a prefect at Forest Public School in Essex, had money sent to him by the group from a previous kidnapping, said Indian foreign minister Lal Krishna Advani.

Sheik in turn is believed to have sent some of the money to Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the 11 September atrocities. Sheik is now wanted for questioning about kidnapping, murder and explosives offences but is remembered as a model pupil at the Essex school.

The son of a wealthy Pakistani clothing merchant, Sheik went to Bosnia to work with a charity and met Mujahideen fighters. His family think he then went to a training camp linked to Osama bin Laden.