TORIES and Labour rightwingers were accused of “bankrupt politics” yesterday after they attempted to smear Jeremy Corbyn by suggesting he sympathised with Osama bin Laden.

Right-wing newspapers dredged up footage of an interview Mr Corbyn had given following the execution of the al-Qaida chief, in which they quoted Mr Corbyn as describing the events as a “tragedy.”

But supporters of the Labour leadership frontrunner immediately hit back at politicians and the media for taking the remarks out of context.

Mr Corbyn discussed the subject in an interview with Press TV shortly after the US killing.

“There was no attempt whatsoever that I can see to arrest [Bin Laden], to put him on trial, to go through that process,” he said.

“This was an assassination attempt, and is yet another tragedy, upon a tragedy, upon a tragedy.”

Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi spluttered: “For him to call this a tragedy and appear to compare it to what happened on September 11 is frightening.

“Osama bin Laden was a terrorist who any sensible human being in the world would want either killed or arrested.”

Lib Dem leader Tim Farron jumped on the bandwagon with a proclamation that Mr Corbyn was “utterly wrong” — though his predecessor Paddy Ashdown made similar criticisms of the killing at the time.

Others who criticised US forces for killing Bin Laden rather than putting him on trial included then-archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and former London mayor Ken Livingstone.

Stop the War convener Lindsey German told the Star that Mr Corbyn had been “absolutely right” to criticise the killing.

“People are saying that Jeremy in some way supported Bin Laden, which is completely false,” she said.

“[The killing] was done for spectacle — it was much more likely to grab headlines than it would have done had he been put on trial.”

She said the smears were “a sign of the fears [opponents and Establishment figures] have over a Corbyn leadership, and a sign of the bankruptcy of their politics.”

Who agreed with Jeremy Corbyn?

Noam Chomsky, writer and philosopher 

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed Bin Laden’s.

Rowan Williams, then-archbishop of Canterbury 

It doesn’t look as if justice … is done. I don’t know full details any more than anyone else does. But I do believe that in such circumstances when we are faced with someone who was manifestly a war criminal, in terms of the atrocities inflicted, it is important that justice is seen to be observed.

Paddy Ashdown, former Lib Dem leader 

If you allow someone to be executed because the due process of law is too difficult to follow, you take a very dangerous step in exactly the wrong direction. The point I really objected to was the point that he should have been executed. That, it seems to me is wholly, wholly, wholly wrong.