Minister: Components of pagers used in Lebanon bombings not from Taiwan | Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The CEO of Taiwanese company Gold Apollo has been released after being questioned over his role in the deadly explosions.

Taiwan’s economy minister said components used in thousands of pagers that exploded Tuesday in Lebanon in a deadly blow to Hezbollah were not made in Taiwan.

Taiwan-based Gold Apollo said this week that it did not manufacture the devices used in the attack, and that Budapest-based BAC, to which the pagers were traced, has a license to use its brand.

It is not clear how or when the pagers were armed so they could be detonated remotely. The same is true of hundreds of walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah that exploded on Wednesday in a second wave of attacks. The two incidents killed 37 people and wounded about 3,000 in Lebanon.

“The components are (mainly) low-quality integrated circuits and batteries,” Taiwan’s Economy Minister Kyu Jie-hui told reporters on Friday.

Asked if the parts of the exploding pagers were made in Taiwan, he said: “I can say for sure that they were not made in Taiwan,” adding that the case is under investigation by judicial authorities.

Security sources said Israel was responsible for Tuesday’s explosions, which have heightened the growing conflict between the two sides. Israel has not commented directly on the attacks.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung, who was also speaking to reporters in parliament, replied “no” when asked if he had met with the de facto Israeli ambassador to express his concerns about the issue.

“We ask our missions abroad to raise their security awareness and will share relevant information with other countries,” Lin said.

As Taiwanese authorities look into any possible links between its sprawling global technology supply chains and the devices used in the attacks in Lebanon, prosecutors questioned Gold Apollo’s chairman and founder, Hsu Ching-kuang, late Thursday night and then released him.

Also present at the attorney general’s office was Teresa Wu, the only employee of a company called Apollo Systems, who did not speak to reporters when she left late Thursday.

Hsu said this week that a person named Teresa was one of his contacts to complete the deal with BAC.

A spokesman for the Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office in Taipei told Reuters the office had interviewed two people as witnesses and obtained approval to conduct searches at four of their company locations in Taiwan as part of its investigation.

“We will seek to determine whether there is any potential involvement of these Taiwanese companies as soon as possible, to ensure the safety of the country and its people,” the spokesman said.

Hezbollah, which is allied with Iran, has vowed to retaliate against Israel, which has not claimed responsibility for the bombings. The two sides have been fighting a cross-border war since the Gaza conflict erupted last October.