Britain's first suicide bomber in Syria was the driver and devoted student of banned hate cleric Omar Bakri, the Standard can reveal today.

Abdul Waheed Majeed, 41, is said to have driven a truck full of explosives into a prison last week in an al-Qaeda “martyrdom mission” in Aleppo.

The father of three left his wife and job in Crawley, West Sussex, six months ago to join an aid mission to war-torn Syria.

Today, Bakri, who was barred from Britain almost nine years ago, told how Majeed was once a key member of his radical banned organisation Al-Muhajiroun.

He said Majeed acted as his driver, recorded his talks and organised his lectures in Crawley where Bakri had a power base of militant supporters.

The cleric also confirmed the former truck driver was friends with convicted terrorists Jawad Akhbar and Omar Khyam, also from Crawley, who were jailed for life in 2007 for plotting to blow up Bluewater shopping centre and the Ministry of Sound nightclub in London.

The revelations raise questions about what the intelligence services knew about Majeed and his intentions.

Hate preacher Anjem Choudary, who led Al Muhajiroun with Bakri said he saw Majeed at the Crawley sermons often and last saw him at a private gathering two years ago.

He praised the suicide act as a “noble deed” adding: “It is clear he went there for humanitarian reasons but when there is war taking place, sometimes you get embroiled in that war to free hundreds of people who are oppressed.”

Counter terror officers were continuing to search Majeed’s three bedroom former council home in Martyrs Avenue, Crawley today.

The Highways Agency contractor left Crawley six months ago to join an Aid 2 Syria convoy organised by his local mosque.

He regularly called his wife Tahmina and relatives said he was “quite happy” before he mysteriously cut off contact about seven days ago.

Majeed killed himself and scores of others in the attack on the Aleppo jail.

The truck was fitted with makeshift armour plating similar to vehicles which featured in the 1979 Mel Gibson movie Mad Max.

Draped over the V-shaped welded ironwork on the front was the black flag of Jabhat al-Nusra, an extremist faction aligned to al-Qaeda and banned in Britain.

The militant group announced the man responsible was a Briton known as Abu Suleiman Al Britani.

Majeed is believed to have been killed instantly in the blast and UK investigators say it may be impossible to formally identify him.

His death heightens fears among UK counter-terror officials about the trend of young Britons travelling to Syria to train to fight with jihadi groups, and the potential that they could return and stage attacks on UK soil.

Speaking to the Standard from his flat in Triploi, Bakri described Majeed as “a very dear brother”.

He claimed Majeed had been an active student and valued member of the banned extremist Al-Muhajiroun organisation between 1996 and 2004.

Bakri said Majeed would organise his sermons in Crawley and record the hate-filled lectures before distributing them to fellow extremists.

“He used to collect me from Crawley railway station and take me to the local community centre and to the mosque twice a week for me to deliver my lectures. Afterwards he would drive me all the way back home to Edmonton.”

He added the pair were friends from 1996 to 2004, after which they lost contact.

He said : “He was a good brother. He was someone who was always at hand to help people.

“He wanted to study Islam and wanted to know what it was to be a good Muslim. He was also very interested in the issue of how we could establish an Islamic state.”

Bakri said he remembers Majeed, who regularly visited Pakistan, as a “family man” but also a someone who “desperately” wanted to help the “Muslim cause”.

“He would organise my lectures in Crawley. He would book times and venues for me. He would also record my talks. He was a funny guy and a family man, he would talk about his daughter a lot. But it doesn’t surprise me that he did this. Knowing him and his nature, he wanted to be of help, he wanted to help people, he wanted to help the, Muslim cause.”

At the time, while living on disability benefit in Edmonton, Bakri would travel round the country encouraging members of al-Muhajiroun to engage in terrorism.

It was at one such meeting in Crawley where Omar Khyam, the leader of the Bluewater fertiliser plotters, first came into contact with the radical preacher.

Majeed was also present at these lectures, Bakri said.

In 2007 five men, three of them from Crawley, were jailed for up to 20 years over the plot to use fertiliser bombs to target Bluewater and other targets.

In 2004 Omar Khyam met the 7/7 London bombings ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan in Crawley where they discussed a trip to Pakistan in a conversation bugged by MI5.

Some reports said that Majeed may have travelled to Syria with one of the brothers of the fertiliser plotters.

MI5 is said to be investigating whether he attended a terror training camp in Pakistan in the late 1990s.

Ahsan Ahmedi, of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, said Majeed was a mentor to radical youths who followed Al-Muhajiroun.

Friends and relatives spoke of their shock. Childhood friend Amjad Anwar, 45, said a condolence ceremony for the family was held at Langley Green mosque on Saturday.

Majeed had Skyped his family regularly since leaving the UK but has not been in touch since the bombing.

Mr Anwar said: “It broke me in pieces when I heard. The family have been informed he was driving a truck.

“His wife and children are devastated. We all are. He was always smiley and jokey, one of those full-of-life characters.

“I can’t believe he would do this. I think he’s somehow got himself into a ‘kill or be killed’ situation. We are getting feedback from people who are being sent to Syria for charity that Muslims have started killing Muslims. External forces out there are driving a wedge between Sunni and Shia.”

Majeed’s uncle Mohammad Jamil, 65, said the family had been left in a “totally confused state”, were hoping it is a mistake and “if the family knew about this, we wouldn’t have let him go.”

ends the Prime Minister said, referring to First Great Western services between Paddington and Reading.