A LEADING North-East university has comer under-fire for accepting a donation from a tobacco giant.

Durham University received £125,000 from British American Tobacco (BAT) towards the Chancellor's Scholarships for Afghan Women appeal.

The scheme pays for five young women for five years to come to Durham from Kabul University to read for their postgraduate degrees.

A group of concerned academics told Durham Students Union (DSU) newspaper Palatinate: "The poor judgement in taking funding from the profits of a universally-maligned tobacco giant speaks volumes for the contempt that the university's leaders and fundraisers have for the ethos and values of this university and its staff and students."

DSU education and welfare officer, Jake Wanstall, declined to comment to The Northern Echo.

However, he told Palatinate that the donation would be deemed inappropriate or even unethical by many students.

Anti-smoking charity Ash also criticised the donation.

A spokesman said: "BAT is a company that makes almost £3bn a year profit from selling an addictive product that kills half of life long users.

"There's no stunt they wont pull to try to look like responsible citizens. The truth is they deal in death."

In response, Tim McInnis, director of development and alumni relations at Durham University, said the programme of postgraduate scholarships for Afghan women had been widely recognised as a pioneering fundraising drive and was supported by more than 2,700 donors raising approximately £630,000.

He confirmed the university accepted a contribution towards the appeal from BATs Charities Aid Foundation in June 2010.

He added: "The BAT donation was accepted following careful consideration by the University Executive Committee (UEC) in line with its gift acceptance policy, which is approved by University Council.

Maximising the resources available to support studentships is an important way in which the university supports its educational purpose, and the feedback we have had suggests that most of our staff and students accept that the benefits of directing this gift towards the funding of scholarships for Afghan women outweigh any other considerations."

A spokeswoman for BAT said the company had not donated the money in a bid to encourage Afghan women to start smoking.

She added: "British American Tobacco is a large FTSE 100 company which has a corporate responsibility programme. It's all above board."