Singapore founding father Lee Kuan Yew is alive, said Farah Rahim, senior director for the Singapore Ministry of Communications and Information. He said a report of his death is a hoax.
“We have reported this to the police and they are investigating this hoax. Our website was not hacked, it was a doctored image,” he was quoted as saying by CNN.
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in Singapore is lodging a police report about a fake website bearing the PMO logo and announcing the death of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.
Screenshots of the website started circulating on Wednesday night.
The hoax led global media outlets including CNN and China’s CCTV and Phoenix Chinese News to carry reports of Mr Lee’s death, only to retract them later.
Singapore’s Straits Times also checked with the PMO, which said no new information has been issued since an update on Wednesday afternoon that Mr Lee was critically ill.
The PMO update drew crowds to the Singapore General Hospital (SGH), where Mr Lee is in the Intensive Care Unit after being hospitalised on Feb 5 for severe pneumonia.
