BUDAPEST: Hungarian intelligence services conducted several interviews with CEO of BAC Consulting Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, a Budapest-based company linked to the pager explosions, the Hungarian government said on Saturday.
Taiwanese pager firm Gold Apollo said on Wednesday that the model of pagers used in detonations in Lebanon were made by BAC Consulting. Gold Apollo had only licensed out its brand to the company and was not involved in the production of the devices.
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The 49-year-old Italian-Hungarian CEO and owner of BAC Consulting, told NBC News earlier this week that she did not make the pagers and was “just the intermediate.”
Hungarian intelligence agencies have been conducting their investigation since Wednesday and have interviewed Barsony-Arcidiacono several times, the Hungarian government’s international press office said in a statement.
It quoted the Constitution Protection Office (AH), one of Hungary’s intelligence agencies.
The AH reiterated an earlier statement from the government that said that the devices used in the pager explosions were never in Hungary.
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Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government also said earlier that BAC Consulting was “a trading-intermediary company, which has no manufacturing or other site of operation in Hungary”.
In two days of attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members exploded. The total death toll in those attacks has risen to 39, and more than 3,000 were injured. The attacks were widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.