Thursday’s Times reveals for the first time that Osama bin Laden sought asylum in Britain back in 1995, wanting to abandon his base in Sudan:

Michael Howard, who was then Home Secretary, recalls how his aides told him of the asylum request from the Saudi-born militant of whom the world knew little of ten years ago.

The teenage bin Laden had reportedly toured Europe with his family and became an Arsenal fan, though there is no record of his ever having been to a match at Highbury.

The astonishing approach to the British authorities happened only months after bin Laden had secretly organised a terror summit in Manila in January 1995 to begin planning how hijackers would turn passenger planes into flying bombs. He called it the “Bojinka plot”, which is Arabic slang for an explosion.

Mr Howard said yesterday: “In truth, I knew little about him, but we picked up information that bin Laden was very interested in coming to Britain. It was apparently a serious request. He already had people operating here, and who knows how history could have been rewritten if he had turned up here?”

Bin Laden never got a chance to make a formal application as Home Office officials investigated him and Mr Howard issued an immediate banning order under Britain’s immigration laws.

It was not until June 1998 — two months before attacks on US embassies in Africa — that bin Laden was placed on the FBI’s most wanted list.

Mr Howard said: “If he had come here to plot the attacks on the twin towers and the US had subsequently asked for his extradition, then by then, under the Labour Government’s laws, he could not have been sent because they refuse to extradite to a country which has the death penalty.”