July 7 London bomber worked for DTI

London, Mar 11 (UNI) One of the July 7 London bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan, worked for the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) helping promote British firms overseas.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, ''the Independent'' has obtained files from Leeds education authority which show details of Khan's work for the DTI's export arm in Yorkshire in the mid-1990s when Britain was seeking more trade links with Asia.

However, investigations reveal that Khan lied about the seniority of his role at the DTI, but did help the government-led drive to get more trade missions off the ground between 1995 and 1996.

He prospered as a primary school teacher, but his file also charts sharp decline from 2003. Prolonged absence from school - when it is now known he was visiting Pakistan - were followed by an unexpected failure to return from extended sick leave in 2004. Before Khan took his job with the DTI in August 1995, he had been on a trip to the US. His friends said he came back with cowboy boots and a leather jacket and toldhis contemporaries he wanted a career in the US.

He became an administration assistant with the Benefits Agency, which he said was dull. The DTI offered better prospects. His file reveals that Khan left to study at Leeds Metropolitan University in September 1996, and took a 2:2 in business management.

According to his file, Khan became disenchanted with the moderate form of Islam practised by his father, Tika Khan, and stepmother, Mamida Begum. And in 1999 he had started frequenting the mosque.

In late 2004, he took almost eight weeks medical leave, citing depression.

In first week of December 2004, Khan had flown to Pakistan via Istanbul with Shahzad Tanweer. A week later, they took a train to Lahore then Faisalabad, and disappeared, Pakistani security officers said. They surfaced in Britain on February 8.

Khan died, killing seven others, when he detonated bomb at Edgware Road station on July 7.

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