Australian officials on Friday strongly defended the response of their forces in the UN peacekeeping contingent in Timor Leste, saying that President Jose Ramos Horta was so wounded in the shooting that he was in no shape to make objective judgments at the time.

Mr Ramos Horta is recovering in the Australian city of Darwin after almost dying of stomach wounds in an ambush by the renegade soldiers outside his home in East Timor's capital of Dili on Feb 11.

In an television interview aired on Thursday and Friday, Mr Ramos Horta recalled arriving home from a morning walk and stumbling into the ambush.

'The gunman was there hiding near my gate and took aim at me,' Mr Ramos Horta said, giving his most detailed public account of the shooting.

'I'm just lucky. As I saw him I turned around to run.'

'That's why he didn't hit me on my chest on the left side, he hit me on the back on the right side.'

Mr Ramos Horta earlier identified the man who shot him as Marcelo Caetano, a rebel soldier whom he had met before.

Eyes of a killer
'I looked at his eyes - not friendly - and he was determined to fire, that's why I turned and ran and I was hit,' Mr Ramos Horta said.

Mr Ramos Horta said help was slow to arrive as he bled in the street outside his compound, and said he was told that UN police obstructed people trying to rescue him.

'I was shouting for an ambulance,' he said.

'My security people in the meantime had arrived, and it took so long for an ambulance to arrive.'

When it did come, there was no paramedic, and a Portuguese medic jumped on board.

Two rebel troops, including their leader, Alfredo Reinado, were killed in a clash with Mr Ramos Horta's guards before the president arrived home that morning. An unknown number of others escaped.

Gunmen who shot at Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao's motorcade that morning in an apparently coordinated attack also escaped.

Mr Ramos Horta blamed UN-backed security forces in Timor Leste - which are Australian-led and include New Zealand and Portuguese police and soldiers - for allowing many of the gunmen to remain at large.

'I would say that the Australian-led forces could have promptly surrounded the entire town, closing all the exits, using helicopters, sending immediately elements to my house to get the information on the ground - they would have captured them within hours,' Mr Ramos Horta said in a TV interview.

In another interview, Mr Ramos Horta said he understood there was no 'hostile pursuit' of the rebels for two days after the shooting.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate said he did not blame the slow response on the Australian soldiers, because they 'only act on requests from the United Nations'.

Investigation on statement
Allison Cooper, a spokeswoman for the United Nations in Timor Leste, said in a statement that Mr Ramos Horta's comments were being 'taken extremely seriously and would be investigated in the context of our internal review' spurred by the assassination attempt.

Australian Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said on Friday that Mr Ramos Horta could not objectively judge the UN response because of his injuries.

'You've got to have a close look at the timing of it all, and of course the president was in no position really at the time to properly judge the timing,' Mr Fitzgibbon said.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters during a visit to Washington on Friday that Mr Ramos Horta had not raised his criticisms during several conversations they have had since the shooting.

'I think our Australian forces handled it very effectively on the ground. I defend their absolute professionalism in how that was dealt with in very trying circumstances,' Mr Rudd said.

Mr Ramos Horta was discharged from a Darwin hospital last week after multiple surgeries and hopes to return to Dili next month. -- AP