“They might be jailed,” he said. “How long they need to be jailed depends on the extent of the corruption, and I think different levels of corruption need different punishments.

“But we have not reached the stage of having to sentence people for life.”

Mahathir, who is on a working visit to the UK, was speaking to the audience after delivering a lecture titled “The Challenge of Good Governance in the Muslim World” at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. He had been asked whether he supported the death penalty for corrupt leaders.

He said those found guilty of corruption by Malaysian courts would be sentenced to jail. In some countries, he said, corrupt people were shot but he did not believe that would solve the problem.

In his lecture, Mahathir said Muslim countries which adopted the democratic system needed to spend more time understanding the way the system worked.

“If you don’t understand that in a democracy the vote is powerful, then you cannot have a democratic system,” he said, adding that such Muslim countries were often more comfortable with monarchies.

In other Muslim countries, he said, the transition to the democratic system had brought disaster.

“Every time they try for a democratic system, there will be fighting among them and the countries are almost destroyed.”

In a democratic system, he said, the people chose the government and supported it for a period of time.

However, in some Muslim countries, the people could not wait for the government’s term to be over and wanted change immediately after the election, he added.

“(It’s) time for them to respect the vote and set up a government which uses power for the betterment of the country and people.”

In Malaysia, he said, the democratic system worked as the people accepted both democracy and the rulers.

“We (in Malaysia) don’t like violence. We don’t overthrow a government until the government changes by itself,” he quipped, drawing laughter from the audience.