Up to now, it is still unclear where the batch of Hezbollah pagers that exploded on September 17 was actually produced.
The Gold Apollo brand pager devices that caused a series of explosions in Lebanon never appeared in the European country, the Hungarian government said in a statement on May 18.
Earlier, Taiwanese pager company Gold Apollo said the pager model used in the attack against Hezbollah was made by BAC Consulting based in Budapest, Hungary.
Gold Apollo also added that it only licensed its brand to BAC Consulting and was not involved in the manufacture of the equipment involved in the Lebanon incident.
BAC has not yet responded to Reuters’ request for comment. Reuters reported on September 18 that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 Gold Apollo pagers and that the shipment had been brought into Lebanon since the beginning of this year.
“The Hungarian authorities have determined that the company in question (BAC) is a commercial intermediary company, with no production facilities or other activities in Hungary,” Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said.
“BAC has a head of operations in Hungary at the listed address and the devices in question (pagers) have never been in Hungary,” he said.
Mr Kovacs said Hungary’s national security agencies would cooperate with all international partners and relevant organisations to further investigate, adding that the matter did not pose a national security risk to Hungary.
So far, the origin of the batch of pagers that caused a series of explosions that killed at least 9 people and injured more than 2,800 others remains an unsolved mystery.
Previously, a representative of Gold Apollo company in Taiwan admitted that he noticed strange details with the payment transfer from BAC company to Gold Apollo.
“The transfers were very strange,” he said, adding that the payments came from the Middle East. He did not elaborate on this, such as specifically from which country in the Middle East.
On the other hand, Taiwan’s economic agency said there was no documentation showing that Gold Apollo exported pagers from the island to Lebanon.
A number of conspiracy theories have emerged following the incident, with Hezbollah accusing Israel of being behind the attack by planting explosives inside messaging devices. Major Western news sites have also cited informed sources as saying the same.
However, these theories do not explain how the attackers were able to interfere with the production process of the pagers to pre-install explosives. It is not even clear where exactly the batch of pages was manufactured or how they were transformed from rudimentary communications devices into weapons of mass destruction.
Israel has yet to comment on the incident.
Meanwhile, on September 18, Lebanon continued to record a series of explosions, but this time related to walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah. At least 20 people were killed while more than 450 others were injured. It is not yet clear whether the walkie-talkie explosion was related to the pager.
