Hungarian intel agency interviews CEO with pager link

BUDAPEST: Hungarian intelligence services have conducted several interviews with the CEO of BAC Consulting, a Budapest-based company linked to deadly explosions of pagers used by Hezbollah members this week, the Hungarian govt 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, adding it had only licensed out its brand to the company and was not involved in the production of the devices.

Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, 49, the Italian-Hungarian CEO and owner of BAC Consulting, told NBC News earlier this week that she did not make the pagers and said she was "just the intermediate."

Hungarian intelligence agencies have been conducting their investigation since Wednesday and have interviewed Barsony-Arcidiacono several times, the Hungarian govt'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 govt that said the pager devices used in the mass detonations were never in Hungary.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban's govt also said earlier that BAC Consulting was "a trading-intermediary company, which has no manufacturing or other site of operation in Hungary".