Japan firm says it stopped making walkie-talkies used in Lebanon blasts

Lebanon’s Annahar newspaper on Wednesday said the Icom walkie-talkies were old handsets.

Reports suggest the walkie-talkies that exploded were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, according to a security source speaking to Reuters news agency.

Icom produces walkie-talkies and radio devices for marine, aviation and land users, and considers itself a “world leader in the amateur radio market”, according to its website.

Asia is considered a global hub for telecoms and electronics, with countries like Japan, Taiwan and China being home to major tech producers that are often favoured as a benchmark of quality.

BBC Verify investigated BAC Consulting, the company linked to the pagers involved in Tuesday’s explosions, and found that the firm has a single shareholder and is registered to a building in the Hungarian capital Budapest’s 14th district.

As well as BAC, a further 13 companies and one person are registered at the same building. BBC Verify’s search of a financial information database, however, does not reveal that BAC has any connections to other companies or people.

Its CEO Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono said she knew nothing about the explosions. “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong,” she told NBC.