Mahathir is at it again....

The former Prime Minister of Malaysia just can't keep his mouth shut.

BRITAIN’S High Commissioner to Malaysia walked out of a speech by the country’s former Prime Minister who said that British and American pilots were murderers and the occupation of Iraq was a terrorist act.

Several European diplomats joined Bruce Cleghorn and left the human rights conference in Kuala Lumpur halfway through the speech by Mahathir Mohammed, who was Prime Minister for 22 years until he retired in 2003. While in power Dr Mahathir often made bitter verbal attacks on the West and Israel. He was in turn himself frequently accused of human rights abuses.

Dr Mahathir used his speech to make a blistering attack, describing Britain, America and Israel as “terrorist nations”. Talking of the Iraq invasion, 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?” In a press conference afterwards Dr Mahathir was unrepentant, labelling Britain and America “state terrorists”. Dr Mahathir co-chairs a committee backing Saddam Hussein’s defence at his forthcoming trial.