Sir Sean: I'm No Tax Dodger

In a bid to silence critics who say his life as a tax exile in the Bahamas undermines his support for Scottish independence, actor Sean Connery said Thursday he has paid almost $6.0 million in taxes to the British government since 1997.

The former James Bond, now 72, made his comment in an interview published in Thursday's edition of Scotland's Herald newspaper.

Some political opponents and sections of the media have claimed that Connery's status as a tax exile undermined his staunch support for Scotland nationalists' bid to achieve independence from the United Kingdom.

"I'm an easy target because of my political opinions, but I defy anyone in Scotland to find one detail where I knowingly ever did anything that was to the detriment of Scotland," he was quoted as saying. "It gets up my nose."

Connery said between 1997 and 2003, he paid $5,911,000 in British taxes. Before 1997, he added, he had $4.4 million in British taxes on his earnings from the films "First Knight," "Indiana Jones" and "The Russia House" alone.

The actor also said he was denied a knighthood by Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor government in 1997 as a result of his connections with the fiercely pro-independence Scottish National Party, or SNP. Blair's government brought in a devolved parliament for Scotland, but is opposed to Scottish independence.

Connery was eventually knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh in 2000.