False report of Swedish king's assassination on faked BBC

False report of Swedish king's assassination on faked BBC website

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Hoaxers imitated the BBC news website on the Internet, including a fake announcement that King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden had been assassinated in Athens while attending the Olympic Games, according to reports.

The phoney website contained the headline late Friday : "Sweden's King murdered," and followed with the announcement: "Swedens King Carl XVI Gustaf was shot in Athens this evening when he was on his way back to his hotel after watching the Swedish table tennis star Jan-Ove Waldner beat Timo Boll, Germany, in the Olympic games."

The Swedish newspaper Expressen said online the page had been sent by e-mail to an unquantified number of Hotmail Internet addresses.

"It's really very bad taste," the newspaper quoted Royal Palace spokeswoman Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg as saying: "It goes beyond the limit."

Apart from the authentic-looking layout closely imitating the BBC, the newspage also included genuine items such as the latest from Najaf in Iraq and the Olympics in order to enhance its appearance of credibility.

The table tennis match was shown on Swedish television Friday with the Swedish royal couple congratulating Waldner.

Carl XVI Gustaf, Queen Silvia and their three children are frequent victims of false rumours about their deaths, illnesses or about supposed affairs.

In March a Swedish radio station several times broadcast a false report that the 58-year-old king had died, later admitting there had been a hoax.