A wrong telephone number dialled by a 12-year-old girl sent Taiwanese security officials scrambling after the ambassador from Swaziland was threatened with death, officials said on Monday.
The girl decided to chastise a friend for missing a date and, against the grain in Chinese-speaking Taiwan, she chose the English language to do it.
Ambassador Njabuliso Gwebu told police she was warned ”you will die” in a late-night call to her official residence on August 3, said an official from the Swaziland embassy.
After checking phone records, police traced the 12-year-old girl, who was not identified. The girl thought she was dialling her friend’s number and made a threat in a mumbled voice, not realising she had dialled the wrong number, police said.
The envoy from the African country requested leniency for the girl, said the embassy official.
”The ambassador had suspected that it was mischief by someone,” the official said. ”As a mother, she realised children made mistakes sometimes and did not blame the girl.” — Sapa-AP