A Taiwanese company said the exploding pagers that injured thousands of people in Lebanon on Tuesday, were actually made in Hungary.
"Hezbollah", the Lebanese armed group and political party, claimed that Israel was behind the security incident that hit its members. The New York Times also reported, citing US and other officials, that Israel had hidden explosives in the batch of detonated pagers.
The pagers that went off simultaneously, killing 11 people and injuring nearly 4,000, were of a brand matching the pagers made by Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese pager manufacturing company.
But the Taiwan-based company said in a statement that the AR-924 model used in the attack was manufactured and sold by a Hungarian company called BAC Consulting, which has a license to use the pager brand.
"Under the cooperation agreement, we authorize BAC to use our trademark for product sales in certain regions, but the design and manufacture of the products are the sole responsibility of BAC," Gold Apollo said in a statement. "Our company only provides trademark authorization and is not involved in the design or manufacture of this product."
The founder and president of the Taiwanese firm, Hsu Ching-kuang, told reporters that there were problems with the company's remittances coming from BAC. "The money transfer was very strange," he said, according to Reuters, adding that the payments came through the Middle East, but without elaborating.