NEW TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan’s Gold Apollo did not make the pagers that were used in the detonations in Lebanon on Tuesday, the company’s founder Hsu Ching-Kuang told reporters on Wednesday.
At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon on Tuesday.
Images of destroyed pagers analysed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from the Taiwan-based Gold Apollo.
Hsu said the pagers used in the explosion were made by a company in Europe that had the right to use the Taiwanese firm’s brand.
“The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it,’ he said.
Hsu did not name the company which he said manufactured the pagers, adding Gold Apollo was also a victim of the incident.
“We are a responsible company. This is very embarrassing,” he said.
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.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Tom Hogue and Michael Perry)
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