Teacher: Suspect exemplary pupil

LONDON: The Nigerian man charged with trying to bomb a US airliner had many Christian friends and was so well-respected in high school that classmates nicknamed him "the Pope," his former teacher said late on Sunday.

But Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab also showed signs of inflexibility, said Michael Rimmer, a Briton who taught history at the British International School in Lome, Togo.

He said that, in a 2001 discussion about the Taliban in Afghanistan, Abdulmutallab was the only one to defend their actions - something he attributed at the time to a desire to play the devil's advocate.