By Ben Blanchard
NEW TAIPEI, Taiwan (Reuters) -Taiwan’s Gold Apollo mentioned on Wednesday the pagers that had been used within the detonations in Lebanon on Tuesday weren’t made by it however by an organization known as BAC which has a licence to make use of its model.
Not less than 9 folks had been killed and almost 3,000 wounded when pagers utilized by Hezbollah members detonated concurrently throughout Lebanon on Tuesday.
Photos of destroyed pagers analysed by Reuters confirmed a format and stickers on the again that had been according to pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese safety supply informed Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo.
“The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it,’ Gold Apollo founder and president, Hsu Ching-Kuang, told reporters at the company’s offices in the northern Taiwanese city of New Taipei on Wednesday.
The company said in a statement that the AR-924 model was produced and sold by BAC.
“We solely present model trademark authorization and don’t have any involvement within the design or manufacturing of this product,” the statement said.
Hsu earlier said that the firm with the licence was based in Europe but later declined to comment on BAC’s location.
While Hsu was meeting with reporters, police officials arrived at the company.
Hezbollah fighters began using pagers in the belief they would be able to evade Israeli tracking of their locations, two sources familiar with the group’s operations told Reuters this year.
Hsu said did not know how the pagers could have been rigged to explode.
Iran-backed Hezbollah said it was carrying out a “safety and scientific investigation” into the causes of the blasts.
Israel’s Mossad spy company planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Lebanese group Hezbollah months earlier than Tuesday’s detonations, in response to a senior Lebanese safety supply and one other supply.
Hsu mentioned Gold Apollo was additionally a sufferer of the incident.
“We may not be a large company but we are a responsible one,” he mentioned. “This is very embarrassing.”
