A hardline Islamist who teaches and preaches at a leading London university is alleged to have mentored a British suicide bomber.

Reza Pankhurst, who served a prison sentence in Egypt, works at the London School of Economics and regularly speaks at student prayer meetings organised by the campus’ Islamic Society, according to the Times. He is a senior member of the Hizb ut-Tahrir group.

It has been claimed by the Standard newspaper that he played a key role in radicalising Omar Sharif who died after an attempted attack on a nightclub in Tel Aviv in 2003.

Freed: Reza Pankhurst (right) pictured with Ian Nisbet (left) and Maajid Nawaz after their release from an Egyptian prison in 2006

Pankhurst, pictured as he awaited trial in Egypt in 2002

It has also been alleged that Sharif met Mr Pankhurst at meetings organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir when he was a student at King’s College London a decade ago.

According to Sharif’s former university friend, Zaheer Khan, Mr Pankhurst acted as Sharif’s mentor and had ‘a big hand to play’ organising the activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir on campus.

In 2006, Mr Khan told the New Statesman magazine that Sharif was ‘heavily attending’ Hizb ut-Tahrir meetings during his time at King’s.

The revelation comes at a time when extremism on university campuses is under review following the discovery that the Detroit airline bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was a former president of the Islamic Society at University College London.

The Times also claims that at least two other London university lecturers are either supporters or members of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

The group wants to create a worldwide Islamic state under Shariah law. However it rejects forcing reform ‘by means of violence and terror’.

The British Government still refuses to ban the group even though it is classed an illegal organisation in Germany, Turkey, Russia and throughout the Middle East.

Earlier this month, the Home Secretary banned the group Islam4UK. It was born out of Al Muhajiroun which disbanded before it could be banned in the wake of the July 7 attacks.

Mr Pankhurst was imprisoned for four years in Egypt in 2002 along with three other British men for promoting Hizb ut-Tahrir.

They had admitted being members of the controversial organisation but denied any political activity. They also claimed they were tortured and forced to sign confessions while detained. The men were convicted along with 23 Egyptians.

Omar Sharif (left) and Asif Hanif pose for photographs in Gaza. Hanif died instantly in the bombing of the Tel Aviv bar but Sharif had fled. His body was discovered two weeks later floating in the sea

Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is banned in Germany, is supposedly prevented from organising and speaking on campuses under the National Union of Students’ policy of ‘no platform’ for racist or fascist views.

But Mr Pankhurst, a post-graduate student who teaches ‘States, Nations and Empires’ in the university’s government department, reportedly discusses the need to establish the Caliphate (Islamic state) in the Islamic Society meetings.

A society member said: ‘He preaches every other week and is constantly bringing the subject around to politics, talking about Afghanistan and the need to establish the Caliphate.

‘Only last week he was talking about the Detroit bomber and saying the guy was not radicalised in London and it was all to do with foreign policy.

‘Last year he recommended we should attend a conference which I later discovered was organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir, but he never mentions the party by name.’

Last month a meeting at Queen Mary College, London, at which Mr Pankhurst and Jamal Harwood, allegedly another member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, were due to speak, was cancelled after student protests about the speakers’ views.

A spokesman for the university, which told the Times Mr Pankhurst was a research student and a graduate teaching assistant, said: ‘No concerns about [Mr Pankhurst’s] conduct have been raised with the school and we are not aware that he is a member of any proscribed organisation or has broken any laws or LSE regulations.’

However a spokesman for the anti-extremism think-tank, the Quilliam Foundation, said: ‘Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organisation which has a long track record of promoting intolerance, has not abandoned its efforts to infiltrate British universities in order to spread its destructive, confrontational message.’

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘Hizb ut Tahrir is kept under continuous review. As and when new material comes to light it is considered and the organised reassessed.’