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 Lt Col Koroma's contemporaries at the military academy's New College, where foreign students are trained, included Princess Basma of Jordan, Prince Turki of Saudi Arabia and Khalid Ahmed al-Thani, a minister in the present Qatari government.

 It is therefore not surprising that, at the time, Koroma was just another African officer cadet. Of half-a-dozen British contemporaries spoken to yesterday by The Daily Telegraph, none remembered him. It is easy for foreign students to get lost in the crowd. About 10 per cent of students are foreign, most of them from Africa, the Far East, the Middle East and the Caribbean. As a result, many of the Third World's better armies are officered by Sandhurst graduates.

 The more influential foreign students of recent times have included the late King Hussein of Jordan; King Abdullah, his son and successor; Sultan Qaboos of Oman and Idi Amin. The Sultan of Brunei, Sir Hassanal Bolkiah, reputedly the world's richest man, was recalled from studies at Sandhurst to take over the reins of his country. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the Qatari Defence Minister and heir apparent, went to Sandhurst, as did Crown Prince Tupouto'a of Tonga, half the Nigerian and Gambian cabinets, and generals in assorted countries from Antigua to Zambia.

 It has not always been a success story. The Sandhurst-trained Nigerian and Ghanaian generals who tired of the incompetence of their weak, civilian governments in the post-independence era and toppled them soon became corrupt themselves. The most egregious, Sani Abacha, the late Nigerian military ruler, embezzled billions of pounds of oil revenue before he died last year.

 Idi Amin was tacitly welcomed in the West when he overthrew the despotic Milton Obote. He was seen as a firm hand who would keep the tottering former British colony in hand. But the former boxing champion and NCO in the King's African Rifles became a dictator who oversaw the slaughter of tens of thousands of Ugandans. However, the overall effect has been to spread a healthy respect for British organisations and, in particular, its Army through many areas of the Third World.

 Founded in 1799, Sandhurst is the oldest military academy of any major army in the world. Its foreign students undergo the standard 11-month course, competing for their own equivalent of the annual Sword of Honour, the Overseas Cane.