The UK's High Commissioner in Malaysia walked out of a human rights conference in Kuala Lumpur today after Britain was labelled a "terrorist nation" by Mahathir Mohamad, the former Malaysian Prime Minister.

The envoy, Bruce Cleghorn, left the event when Dr Mahathir gave a speech which the senior diplomat said contained "abuse and misrepresentation".

Dr Mahathir accused British pilots who fought in the Iraq war of being "murderers" and coalition forces of breaking international laws on human rights by "detaining Iraqis and others and torturing them at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere".

Speaking about the war in Iraq, he said: "The British and American bomber pilots came, unopposed, safe and cosy in their state-of-the-art aircraft, pressing buttons to drop bombs, to kill and maim.

"And these murderers, for that is what they are, would go back to celebrate ‘mission accomplished’. Who are the terrorists? The people below who were bombed or the bombers? Whose rights have been snatched away?"

Dr Mahathir, who ruled Malaysia for 22 years before his retirement in 2003, also defended his own human rights record in government. He was often criticised for detaining suspects without trial and came under attack from Western governments in the late 1990s over the jailing of his former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim.

The former prime minister, who was a US ally in the fight against terrorism when in power although he opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, noted that America’s reason for invading Iraq was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. "As we all know, it was a lie," he said.

The High Commissioner said in a statement today: "I was invited by Suhakam (the Malaysian human rights commission) to attend the opening of their human rights day conference. "I accepted out of respect for Suhakam and for Tun Mahathir as a previous prime minister of Malaysia.

"Unfortunately, I found myself listening to abuse and misrepresentation about my country. I therefore left."

At the conference, Dr Mahathir, 80, compared American and British actions in Iraq to rocket attacks by Israel on Palestinians and referred to the countries as "these terrorist nations". He told the conference that before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, UN economic sanctions had led to the death of around 500,000 infants there.

"At the time this was happening where were the people who were concerned with human rights?" he asked. "Did they expose the abusers of Britain and America? Did they protest against their own government? No. It is because they, the enemy, are killed."

It is not the first time that Dr Mahathir has clashed with foreign dignitaries. Al Gore, the former US vice-president, also walked out on a dinner hosted by him during a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in Kuala Lumpur in 1998.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Mandela’s tribe threatens President Zuma
• The French empire strikes back
• Wife of cheating governor exacts a political revenge