This year's Nobel literature prize laureate, British playwright Harold Pinter, has captured international headlines by blasting both American President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair as war criminals for killing thousands of Iraqi civilians, local media reported on Thursday.

Pinter described what he calls clever American hypocrisy -- pretending to defend democracy while supporting brutal human rights violations in dictatorships in Nicaragua and many other countries, costing many thousands of lives and bloodshed.

He added that the international community and mass media have ignored such developments as the torture of the prisoners in Guantanemo -- afraid to criticize Washington as US military bases spread in nations around the world -- with the exception of Sweden.

"The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them," Pinter said.

"You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis," he added.

Dying of cancer and bound to a wheel chair, Pinter, 75, is unable to come to Stockholm for his Nobel speech and for the prize ceremony this Saturday.

His video-taped Nobel speech was screened at the Royal Academy in Stockholm Wednesday evening, and has been described as the most political Nobel literature lecture ever made.

Source: Xinhua