SEAN Penn appears determined to have the final word over his contentious comments about the Falklands. After being lampooned by the British media for accusing Britain of “ridiculous colonialism”, the Hollywood actor has written an article for The Guardian defending his position - but can’t help but pour more fuel on the flames.

Penn insists his remarks were distorted by the “transparently corrupt and non-diligent propaganda machine” of the British press in a bid to encourage the “inflammatory notion” that the people living in the Falklands should be deported or absorbed into Argentine rule.

“I neither said, nor insinuated that,” he said. “The UK and [Chile's] General Augusto Pinochet (with ultimately timid support from the US) along with the diversionary invasion by the former Argentinian regime, did a fine job of leaving little room for that argument on today’s world stage.”

He accused the UK of showing “unfaltering support of a dictator [Pinochet] who had live rats inserted into female genitalia and electric probes placed on the testicles of men in Chile simply because they had elected for a life, identity, and leadership of their own choosing”.