Scaring jokes

Rome - Italy's leading news agency has denied reporting that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden would attend Pope John Paul II's funeral on Friday after a story attributed to it circulated widely on the Internet."Some people just won't stop even at a time of mourning for the pope: among the deluge of false emails, viruses and spam, a false item attributed to Ansa is circulating about Osama bin Laden attending the funeral of John Paul II," the Ansa agency said.In a dispatch issued late on Tuesday, Ansa noted that the prankster, who specified bin Laden would be flying to Rome from Pakistan, had accurately imitated the agency's sign-off style - a series of letters and numbers at the end of every item.The Saudi-born bin Laden, whose al-Qaeda militant group is blamed by United States authorities for the September 11, 2001 attacks on American cities, is thought to be hiding on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.