Taiwan probes firm's possible link to Hezbollah pagers

TAIPEI: Taiwan investigators searched four locations on Thursday (Sep 19) as part of a probe into the origin of pagers that exploded while being used by Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon, authorities said.

Questions and speculation have swirled over where the devices came from and how they were supplied to Hezbollah, after hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies detonated across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people, according to the country's health minister.

The New York Times reported this week that Israel had inserted explosive material into a shipment of pagers from Taiwan's Gold Apollo, citing American and other anonymous officials.

But Gold Apollo has staunchly denied producing the devices, and Taiwanese prosecutors launched an investigation into their origin on Wednesday.

"We instructed the Investigation Bureau's national security station to interview two witnesses and search four locations," the prosecutor's office in Taipei said in a statement on Thursday, declining to name the places searched or the people interrogated.

"They cooperated in providing relevant documents and information," it said, adding that the investigation was ongoing.

Earlier on Wednesday, Gold Apollo's head Hsu Ching-kuang said the pagers were "100 per cent not" made in Taiwan.

Hsu visited Gold Apollo's offices in New Taipei City with investigators on Thursday.

He was also questioned by prosecutors late into the night on Thursday before being released. He declined to answer reporters' questions as he left one of the Taipei offices of Taiwan prosecutors. 

Calls to the prosecutor's office before office hours on Friday were not answered. Taipei prosecutors have not issued any statements so far about their investigations into Gold Apollo.

Another person seen leaving the prosecutor's office was Teresa Wu, the sole employee of a company called Apollo Systems Ltd, who did not speak to reporters as she left the prosecutors late on Thursday.

Hsu said this week a person called Teresa had been one of his contacts for the deal with Hungary-based firm BAC.

Company records show Apollo Systems was set up by Wu in April this year. It was not immediately clear what the relationship was between her company and BAC.

On Wednesday, Gold Apollo pointed the finger at its Budapest-based partner BAC Consulting KFT, saying in a statement that the Hungarian company had been allowed to use its trademark.

It added that the model mentioned in media reports "is produced and sold by BAC".

But a Hungarian government spokesman said BAC Consulting KFT was "a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary".

The mystery has also spanned to Bulgaria, where authorities are looking into the possible involvement of a Sofia-based company in delivering pagers.