A former Burmese diplomat was killed yesterday when he torched his embassy in an attack that completely gutted the building in Kuala Lumpur, officials said.

A senior Malaysian foreign ministry official told AFP that the disgruntled man had entered the two-storey mission and then set it on fire.

"The fire was done by a former staff who had returned to the mission to demand his salary. He then burnt the upstairs of the building. He died in the fire," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Bernama also quoted police as saying that the diplomat was believed to have set himself ablaze on the ground floor and then run upstairs where most of the embassy's documents were stored.

Fire authorities said that 80 percent of the building was burned in the afternoon attack on the mission in a leafy eastern suburb of Kuala Lumpur where many other embassies and diplomatic residences are located.

The cream concrete building was devastated by the blaze, which shattered windows and left the interiors covered in black smoke, shards of glass and the twisted remains of furnishings and office equipment.

Water gushed out of the embassy compound as fire hoses drained away, while people stood outside the smoke-stained walls trying to establish if their visa applications and documents had been destroyed.

American citizens Steve Lauden and McKensie Jameson, both residents of Malaysia, said they had left their passports at the embassy after applying for visas to travel to Burma next week.

"They said to pick it up in two business days but when I got here, the street was shut off and there were emergency services every where," said Lauden as embassy officials milled around inside the compound.

"One guy said the passports might be okay and to check with them later," he said.

Embassy firebombed in 2004

Police, fire officials with sniffer dogs and forensic experts were seen inspecting the damage as electrical authorities cut off the supplies to the building, which is surrounded by high concrete walls topped with razor wire.

Fire and Rescue Department assistant operations director Ali Ismail said they were alerted within minutes of the fire being spotted by that emergency crews were misdirected to the nearby Egyptian embassy.

"By the time our firefighters reached the Myanmar (Burma) Embassy, the building was already engulfed by the fire," he told Bernama.

In April 2004, three Burmese refugees firebombed the ground floor of the embassy and attacked a senior diplomat with an axe, seriously injuring him on the head and hands.

Malaysia's Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar expressed his regret over the latest incident.

"It is important that the sanctity of any embassy in the country is protected. I am saddened by the fire and express our condolence," he told AFP.