AIG CEO apologises for comments equating bonus criticism and lynching

NEW YORK: The head of insurer American International Group apologized for a "poor choice of words" on Tuesday after coming under fire for equating criticism of banker bonuses with the lynching of African-Americans in the Deep South.

Outrage over bonuses paid to bankers "was intended to stir public anger, to get everybody out there with their pitch forks and their hangman nooses, and all that - sort of like what we did in the Deep South . And I think it was just as bad and just as wrong," Chief Executive Bob Benmosche was quoted as saying in an interview in The Wall Street Journal.