Singapore dismisses Lee Kuan Yew death report as hoax

18 March 2015 03:35 pm

A top government spokesman dismissed as a hoax Wednesday a report that Singapore's founding father had died, CNN reported.

Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew is alive, said Farah Rahim, senior director for the Singapore Ministry of Communications and Information. The 91-year-old is in critical condition, the government has said.

A message purporting to be from the current Prime Minister circulated online saying that Lee had died.
"We have reported this to the police and they are investigating this hoax. Our website was not hacked, it was a doctored image," the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, The Straits Times reported that the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) was lodging a police report about a fake website bearing the PMO logo and announcing the death of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

It said screenshots of the website started circulating on Wednesday night, leading some foreign media outlets to carry reports of Mr Lee's death, only to retract them later.

The Straits Times checked with the PMO, which said no new information has been issued since an update on Wednesday afternoon that Mr Lee was critically ill.