THE Foreign Office is withholding dozens of files from the National Archives about Britain’s cosy relationship with the brutal Sultan of Brunei, the Star has found.

The revelation comes as Britain’s closest ally in south-east Asia starts stoning people to death for sex outside marriage, lashing lesbians and slicing limbs off thieves under a disturbing new penal code.

The department’s secret archive on power-crazed Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah stretches back to 1984, when Brunei became independent from British rule.