In a pre-recorded broadcast in Stockholm by the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize for Literature, he said: “The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law.

“How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice.”

Forbidden by doctors from going to Stockholm to receive the $1.28 million (£740,000) prize, Pinter, 75, who has been battling cancer for years, sent a video recording showing him in a wheelchair with his legs under a red blanket. His publisher will pick up the prize at a ceremony on Saturday.

He said that there were plenty of examples of Washington exercising “a clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good”. Citing examples from the US-backed Contra rebels in Nicaragua to the detention of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, he said that the US and its ally Britain — “its own bleating little lamb” — had traded in death and “employed language to keep thought at bay”.

“Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. But you wouldn’t know it. It never happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. There was no interest,” he said.

Even discussing drama, humour and satire he made digs at the US, saying of one play that “torturers become easily bored, they need a bit of a laugh to keep their spirits up” and citing the abuse of prisoners in US custody in Iraq.

Then Pinter expanded his critique to include “the majority of politicians” who, he said, weave “a vast tapestry of lies” to keep themselves in power. He concluded by calling for an “unflinching, unswerving and fierce intellectual determination as citizens to define the real truth of our lives and our societies. If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision, we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us: the dignity of man.”

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Colonel's Iraq speech 'left men fearful'
• Iraqi translator is left to his fate in Basra
• Ten tips to help you tell if the rescue is working