Ex-Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has denied via his Twitter account reports that he was killed in an accident in Dubai, saying the reports were an April Fool's Day joke, Thai News Agency (TNA) reported.

Thaksin posted his message via his @ThaksinLive Twitter account yesterday afternoon, after nearly two years of idleness to respond to the rumour, saying that his family members and many other people phoned him to inquire about the information and he explained that it was merely an April Fool's Day joke.

According to the ousted Thai premier, foreigners call every April 1 ‘April Fool's Day’, when people in some European countries make funny jokes and in Thailand, those who dislike others do it this way, which targeted persons should not have any hard feeling; so, we would live long.

The former prime minister, who is an elder brother of incumbent Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, acknowledged that he plans to share his non-political experiences soon during his overseas trips through his Facebook account. In his previous tweet on Nov 1, 2011, Thaksin mentioned post-flooding rehabilitation for Thailand.

- Bernama