Charlie Hebdo gunmen may have followed al-Qaeda preacher with a lust for prostitutes

Reports indicate that the radical Islamic preacher who inspired the Charlie Hebdo attacks had a record of frequenting the services of prostitutes.

Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born preacher who specialised in radicalising Muslims in the West, appears to have met Said Kouachi in Yemen in 2011.

If so, Kouachi would have been among his last pupils: Awlaki was killed by a US drone in September 2011. Yet more than three years after his death, his preachings may still have helped to incite the massacres in Paris.

According to The Smoking Gun, al-Awaki first came to the attention of the FBI in the 1990s, the pious imam and father of one was apparently soliciting prostitutes.

In 1996 he was sentenced to an AIDS education course as well as paying fines and restitution. This didn't stop him, as he was caught again in 1997.

His shenanigans continued after he moved to Virginia according to the report - where the FBI claims he was a prodigious John.

According to at least one of the prostitutes he was "very polite."

The Smoking Gun has published their highlights from the FBI report on their website.

Awlaki's brand of indoctrination has a remarkable history of encouraging terrorism. What made him different from other jihadist ideologues was that he concentrated his message almost entirely on Muslims in the West.

Awlaki's own background made him ideally suited for this task. He was an American citizen, born in New Mexico in 1971 to Yemeni parents.

Awlaki helped to create al-Qaeda's online English-language magazine, Inspire, and seized the chance to fill cyberspace with video clips of his sermons.

The list of people who committed murder under his influence is remarkable. Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army major who killed 13 fellow soldiers in Fort Hood in 2009, was in regular e-mail contact with Awlaki.

The Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to destroy an American airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009, had also listened to Awlaki's preachings in Yemen. Faisal Shahzad, who planted a car bomb near Times Square in New York in 2010, told his interrogators that he was "inspired" by Awlaki.

Now the name of Said Kouachi might be added to the roll call of young Muslims who were roused to violence by Awlaki.

- With reporting from ©The Daily Telegraph, London