The Central District Courtroom in Lod will hear on Tuesday an enchantment in opposition to the choice of the Rishon Lezion Justice of the Peace’s Courtroom to finish the restrictive circumstances imposed on Jonatan Urich, a senior aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a key suspect within the so-called “Qatargate” scandal.
Urich, together with Netanyahu’s former spokesman Eli Feldstein, spearheaded a pro-Qatari public relations marketing campaign to forged the Gulf state in a optimistic gentle forward of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, hosted in Doha, and reportedly continued his PR work for Qatar nicely after the Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault on Israel sparked the continuing battle, regardless of the nation’s ties to the phobia group.
Urich, Feldstein and a 3rd adviser to Netanyahu, Yisrael Einhorn, are suspected of a number of offenses tied to their alleged pro-Qatar lobbying, together with contact with a overseas agent and a sequence of corrupt actions involving lobbyists and businessmen, all whereas working for the prime minister. The investigation has additionally expanded to cowl enterprise connections of former safety officers to Qatar.
The enchantment was filed Sunday by Israel Police’s Lahav 433 main crimes unit, in response to Choose Menachem Mizrahi Friday resolution to dismiss police’s request to increase varied restrictions positioned on Urich after his preliminary home arrest in Might, saying he can be allowed to fulfill and work with the premier once more beginning this week.
Within the enchantment, police wrote that Urich’s “actions had been performed in opposition to the pursuits of the Prime Minister’s Workplace and the state.”
Police added that proof signifies Netanyahu was unaware of Urich’s dealings with Qatar.
Aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Qatargate suspect Jonatan Urich arrives for a Supreme Courtroom listening to on his enchantment in opposition to his remand in custody, in Jerusalem, Might 9, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
The restrictions on Urich, which police sought to increase till September 10, included a ban on making contact with a number of different figures concerned within the Qatargate scandal, in addition to anybody working for the Prime Minister’s Workplace, together with Netanyahu himself.
In Mizrahi’s resolution, the decide voiced direct criticism of each the content material of the investigators’ case in opposition to Urich and the way by which they offered proof to the court docket, in gentle of the request to increase the constraints positioned on him.
Based on Mizrahi, police failed to supply proof assembly the affordable suspicion commonplace that Urich held the standing of a public servant as outlined by legal legislation — a designation related to his culpability for potential bribery, fraud and breach of belief, for which he’s suspected.
Information of paperwork photographed at a listening to within the Rishon Lezion Magistrates Courtroom for extending the detention of suspects Jonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein who had been arrested in reference to the co-called Qatar-gate scandal, April 1, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
In Mizrahi’s ruling, he revealed a few of the testimony given by Netanyahu, who spoke to the police’s Lahav 433 main crime unit in March concerning the Qatargate affair.
Based on Mizrahi, “Netanyahu was requested if he was conscious that the suspect labored for Qatar, and he answered within the damaging. He added that even when it had been the case, that’s the way in which issues go, so ‘there’s nothing illegitimate, many individuals work for a lot of nations. Qatar shouldn’t be an enemy state.’”
