By ‘Dayo Showemimo
Khawaja’s tweets read: ‘BREAKING: Queen Elizabeth is being treated at King Edward 7th Hospital in London. Statement due shortly: @BBCWorld,’ and ‘Queen Elizabeth has died.’
Realising her error, Khawaja quickly apologised and deleted the tweets, saying it was ‘in a silly prank’ but it was too late as the tweets had gone viral by then.
False Alarm: Have deleted previous tweets!!
— Ahmen Khawaja (@AhmenKhawaja) June 3, 2015
In a bid to quell fears, Buckingham Palace issued a statement that the Queen had in fact had a ‘routine, pre-scheduled appointment’ in King Edward VII Hospital. The monarch was soon back at the Palace after what was an annual medical check up.
A BBC spokesman also said: ‘During a technical rehearsal for an obituary, tweets were mistakenly sent from the account of a BBC journalist saying that a member of the royal family had been taken ill. The tweets were swiftly deleted and we apologise for any offence.’
