Qatargate: Judge says PM’s aide Urich stays in detention, Feldstein released to house arrest
Ruling comes after police appealed decision made by different judge, who assailed cops for asking pair about separate leak case; Urich’s attorney claims officers told him to ‘shut up’ when he complained of chest pain
After police appealed a Friday court decision that two key suspects in the Qatargate scandal could be released to house arrest, a second court ruled later in the day that a top confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jonatan Urich, would remain in police custody until Monday while senior aide Eli Feldstein should indeed be sent to house arrest.
The decisions by the Lod District Court amounted to a partial acceptance of the police’s requests to extend both Urich and Feldstein’s remand amid the ongoing investigation into their allegedly illicit ties to Qatar.
According to Hebrew-language media reports, officials from the Shin Bet and Likud MK Tally Gotliv attended the second hearing at the Lod District Court, which ruled that Feldstein would be released to house arrest until April 22.
After a closed-door hearing on Urich’s case, Judge Michael Kershan ruled that the detention of the key aide to the premier should be extended until Monday, stating that decisions should be issued separately on Urich and Feldstein’s custody.
“You can’t compare the two to each other,” Kershan reportedly told the court, adding that Urich would be released on Monday “subject to developments.”
The decision came after an initial ruling earlier in the day by the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court that the two were to be released to house arrest, rejecting a police request to extend their remand for a week and criticizing officers’ conduct in their interrogation.
The Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court initially ruled Friday morning that the two would be released to house arrest until April 22. For 60 days, the two are forbidden from contacting anyone connected to the case, including Netanyahu, and are barred from exiting the country for 80 days, according to the release conditions.
In his ruling, Judge Menachem Mizrahi leveled criticism at police investigators, saying that he suspected they didn’t focus solely on Urich and Feldstein’s alleged ties to Qatar during the last few days of interrogations, but also used the opportunity to probe the two about the leak of classified documents from the Prime Minister’s Office, a separate case in which Feldstein is also a central suspect.
In the so-called Qatargate affair, Urich and Feldstein are suspected of multiple offenses tied to their alleged work for a pro-Qatar lobbying firm, including contact with a foreign agent and a series of corruption charges involving lobbyists and businessmen.
Qatar has denied suspicions that the alleged disinformation campaign it funded was also aimed at discrediting Egypt’s role in negotiations to free Israelis held hostage in Gaza.
Separately, Feldstein is at the heart of a scandal in the PMO involving a highly classified document — ostensibly detailing Hamas’s priorities and tactics in hostage negotiations — that was unlawfully removed from the IDF’s military intelligence database and leaked to Germany’s Bild newspaper.
In the appeal against the decision to release Urich and Feldstein, the Israel Police charged that Mizrahi has been acting in his own personal interests.
“From the start of the hearing in this case, the judge has been acting in a way that we do not understand,” police said. “It started with the fact that he completely removed the sweeping gag order. Even when we asked to just reduce the gag order, he rejected us outright. Even when we filed for a stay of execution, he said there wasn’t any room for that.”
The police said they felt as though the judge is “‘giving his regards’ to the Judicial Selection Committee in order to pave the way for him to be appointed as a district judge,” in an apparent nod to concerns over the politicization of judicial appointments amid the government’s contentious overhaul of the judiciary.
They further accused Mizrahi of forcing police investigators to discuss “sensitive documents” in hearings and said he writes his case decisions as though he is writing “press releases.”
“He writes classified things and then deletes them from the minutes after the media has already published them,” police said.
However, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the main architect of the judicial overhaul, welcomed Mizrahi’s decision on the detention of Netanyahu’s aides.
“What happened today is another step in the collapse of the selective enforcement policy that has been implemented here for decades,” Levin said, calling the ruling “a testament to the new winds blowing in the judicial system.”
Levin claimed that due to his work as justice minister, “more and more judges are showing integrity and independence, and are not submitting to the dictates of the system’s heads.”
“The struggle to change the judicial system, to stop selective enforcement and to restore democracy is a difficult struggle against those who have held corrupt and unlimited power for decades,” Levin said. “Determination is required, unity is required, and patience is also required. Today, we can already see the fruits of our struggle.”
Dispute over Urich’s health
During Friday’s hearing, attorney Amit Hadad, Urich’s lawyer, alleged that his client had collapsed during a police interrogation.
Hadad told the court that Urich had informed the detective questioning him that he was having chest pain, but was told to “shut up.”
The police representative present at the court hearing denied Hadad’s version of events.
“You didn’t do anything about his pain until he was on his way to the [police] car, and then Urich lost consciousness and fell to the ground,” Hadad claimed, adding that only then was an ambulance called.
Contradicting him, the police representative said Hadad’s version of events is “not accurate,” and claimed he “came immediately to the parking lot” when he was informed that Urich had passed out and needed an ambulance.
“I saw Urich sitting on the ground, but he wasn’t unconscious,” he said.
He said Urich had refused to be taken to the hospital because he didn’t want to be seen in handcuffs, and so was instead treated by Magen David Adom medics in the interrogation room.
During a joint interrogation session conducted by police on Thursday, Feldstein accused Urich of lying to officers about payments made to Feldstein. The two have given contradictory versions of the events to police. According to Kan, Urich broke down in tears at one point.
Hebrew media reported that an Israeli businessman was questioned under caution on Wednesday over his connections to the affair. He is the second businessman grilled in the scandal after Israeli businessman Gil Birger gave testimony about his role in it.
Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Zvika Klein was interrogated as a suspect on Monday. On Thursday, three more journalists were questioned by police, though they are not suspected of wrongdoing and were instead summoned as individuals with knowledge of the events. Klein, who has denied any involvement in the affair, was released Thursday from house arrest without any further restrictions imposed on him.
Channel 12 reported Thursday that investigators are set to fly to the United States to question lobbyist Jay Footlik, owner of the firm The Third Circle, for which Urich and Feldstein are suspected of carrying out work while being employed as aides to Netanyahu.
They are alleged to have passed pro-Qatari messages to reporters in the name of “senior political officials,” a code often used by the prime minister’s advisers for Netanyahu himself when they do not want a comment directly attributed to him.
Feldstein was apparently paid by Birger, who has acknowledged transferring money to him on behalf of Footlik for tax reasons.
The Times of Israel Community.