The president of the United Nations General Assembly, who is involved in an acrimonious diplomatic spat with Israel, said yesterday he had received death threats via the internet that UN security chiefs were taking seriously.

Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, the former Nicaraguan foreign minister who has chaired the 192-member assembly since September, accused Israel, in a statement read out by a spokesman, of a "malicious and absolute lie" in claiming he tried to deny its ambassador the right to speak at a recent human rights session.