Attorneys for Qatargate suspect Jonatan Urich say he plans to resume working for PM

Lawyers for key Qatargate suspect Jonatan Urich suggested Monday that the senior aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be permitted to meet with him and return to work in the Prime Minister’s Office now that restrictions placed on him have expired.

The comments came a day after the Israel Police handed its investigation into the scandal over to the State Attorney’s Office, saying it had completed its probe and recommending a two-month extension to the sanctions on Urich, including barring him from working in the Prime Minister’s Office.

The Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court rejected the police request to extend the restrictions.

The decision is expected to be appealed by the police at the Lod District Court on Tuesday, but in the meantime, the restrictive conditions imposed on Urich have expired, potentially paving the way for him to meet with Netanyahu.

Urich, along with former Netanyahu spokesman Eli Feldstein and ex-campaign adviser Yisrael Einhorn, is accused of taking money to spearhead a public relations campaign to cast Qatar in a positive light for over a year after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, despite the Gulf state’s strong ties to the terror group, and doing so while working in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Urich is suspected of contact with a foreign agent, bribery, fraud, breach of trust and money laundering.

Urich’s lawyers, Amit Hadad and Noa Milstein — both of whom are also representing Netanyahu in his ongoing graft trial — said there is now no reason that a meeting between the two cannot take place.

The pair had written to the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court on Sunday, arguing that the court did not have the power to extend the restrictions as police had already handed over their findings to the State Attorney’s Office.

Police, in their own argument to the court, had said that allowing Urich to resume working in the PMO would be to allow him to “return to the scene of the crime.”

Hadad and Milstein informed police that Urich intends to return to work at the Prime Minister’s Office as soon as possible.

The Qatargate affair is just one of several scandals roiling the PMO, alongside the leak of classified materials to the Bild newspaper in Germany in summer 2024 allegedly to influence Israeli public opinion about hostage negotiations with Hamas. That affair also involves Urich, Feldstein, and Einhorn.

Netanyahu has received wide backlash over his connection to the Qatar affair – though he denies any knowledge of the PR work by people under his charge. A recent poll found that half of Israelis, including 30 percent of those who voted for the governing coalition, believe working for Qatar while working in the PMO should be considered an act of treason.

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, considered Netanyahu’s most significant challenger in the election later this year, has said those involved deserve life in prison for having served an “enemy” in wartime, and opposition leaders have denounced the premier over the scandal. At least four ministers in the government have also condemned those involved.