Britain’s representative on the UN Security Council has been criticised after standing in silence to mark the death of Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s hardline president.

James Kuriuki, the UK’s deputy ambassador to the UN, joined his colleagues to observe a moment of silence for the leader, whose killings earned him the nickname the “Butcher of Tehran”.

The British diplomat stood alongside his American counterpart at the beginning of the 9,629th meeting of the Security Council, for the silence requested by Russia, China and Algeria.

Ben Wallace, the former defence secretary, said: “Standing in silence for the death of the president of Iran in the UN has to be one of the lowest points for the Foreign Office.”

Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former Cabinet minister, added: “Diplomacy is a matter of judgment. We have to talk to regimes we don’t like but that doesn’t mean we ought to honour them in death.”

Tory MP Alicia Kearns, who is chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said: “The UK recognises states, not individual governments, and as such the minute’s silence was in respect of the country and the rank of the individual.

“However for my part one can respect the silence without standing for a man whose regime has committed femicide, is funding terror globally and has attempted assassinations on UK and European shores.”

Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash alongside Hossein Amirabdollahian, his foreign minister, earlier this week.

Under his leadership, Iran cracked down hard against protesters opposed to mandatory hijab laws, jailing around 20,000 and putting more than 500 to death.

The protests erupted after Mahsa Amini, 22, died in the custody of the “morality police” after she was detained for allegedly breaching the strict Islamic dress code for women.

In the late 1980s, Raisi was part of a “death commission” in Tehran that ordered the execution of thousands of political dissidents.

Geoffrey Robertson, the human rights lawyer, said that this reign of terror “bears some comparison to the death marches of allied prisoners at the end of the Second World War”.

After he was elected president in 2021, he supported Iran’s enrichment of uranium and hampered international access to nuclear reactors.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, branded the period of silence a “disgrace”.

He wrote on social media: “The UN Security Council observed a moment of silence today in memory of the mass murdering Iranian president Raisi, who is responsible for the murder of thousands! What is next for the Security Council? A moment of silence on the anniversary of Hitler’s death?!

“The Security Council has simply become a danger to world peace.”

The Telegraph has contacted the FCDO for comment.