Ghahraman said everyone was entitled to a fair trial, "including those accused of very egregious crimes".

"I would essentially be letting down the human rights framework if I thought anything other than that. My work on defence and prosecution has always been equally a point of pride for me."

Her profile page on the Green Party website has now been changed, following her admission that it "could be clearer".

It previously said: "Golriz has lived and worked in Africa, The Hague and Cambodia, putting on trial world leaders for abusing their power."

Now it says: "Golriz worked for United Nations Tribunals as part of both defence (Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia) and prosecution (Cambodia) teams."

But she said she has never hid her defence work, and that it's "certainly not something I'm ashamed of".

"It's absolutely offensive to say that I deny genocide, because there's nothing that's been more important to me than to highlight genocide as an international crime."

Legal expert Andrew Geddis came to Ghahraman's defence today. Writing for the Punditblog, he wrote: "Ghahraman played a necessary (if hard) role in an internationally established institution designed to resolve in an open and legitimate fashion individual guilt for horrible actions.

"Defending nasty individuals is just a part of what international human rights lawyers do."