Taiwan’s crucial tech industry Gold Apollo has been unwittingly drawn into Middle East politics after revelations that thousands of exploding pagers used to kill members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group were manufactured using the branding of a Taiwanese firm.
Gold Apollo on Wednesday denied that it had manufactured the AR-924 model pagers that exploded en masse in Lebanon, saying they had been made by a European company named BAC through a licensing deal.
“According to the agreement, we authorise BAC to use our brand trademark for product sales in specific regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are entirely handled by BAC,” Gold Apollo said in a statement, Al Jazeera reports.
“We only provide brand trademark authorization and have no involvement in the design manufacturing of this product,” it added.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said it had no record of direct exports of the devices to Lebanon and that the pagers may have been modified after manufacturing.
However, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The New York Times and Reuters news agency, citing unnamed officials, reported that Israeli authorities had placed small amounts of explosive material in the pagers before the detonations.
bd-pratidin/GR
