Ex-aide to PM living in Serbia grilled by Israeli cops over leaked files, Qatargate
Yisrael Einhorn reportedly tells investigators he was misled about the classified documents, believing leak was authorized, defends fellow top Netanyahu aide Jonatan Urich
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Yisrael Einhorn, a former senior election campaign adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu living in Serbia, was questioned Tuesday by Israeli police in Belgrade over his role in the leaked documents case and so-called Qatargate affair that have embroiled the Prime Minister’s Office.
Photographs published by the Haaretz daily showed Einhorn and his lawyers arriving at the Serbian justice ministry, where the Israel Police investigators were also seen entering.
Einhorn has been living in the Serbian capital over the past year, while working as an adviser to Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, and has not returned to Israel since a probe was opened last year into an intelligence leak.
Efforts to arrange Einhorn’s testimony in Israel failed to bear fruit, and while prosecutors initially opposed traveling to Serbia to interrogate him, they ultimately agreed to question him there.
Einhorn, along with a top aide to the prime minister, Jonatan Urich, and ex-spokesman Eli Feldstein, is a key suspect in the intelligence leak case, which involves the theft of classified IDF documents and the leaking of one of them to the German daily, Bild.
Feldstein and reserve IDF officer Ari Rosenfeld have both been indicted in the case, while the attorney general announced last week that charges would also be filed against Urich, pending a hearing, for transmitting classified files to harm state security and destroying evidence.
תיעוד בלעדי: שרוליק איינהורן הגיע לחקירה בסרביה בפרשות קטאר והמסמכים
שרוליק איינהורן, יועץ לשעבר לקמפיין הליכוד ומקורבו של ראש הממשלה, הגיע הבוקר (שלישי) לחקירתו במשרד המשפטים הסרבי בפרשות הדלפת המסמכים המסווגים ל"בילד" והקשרים בין לשכתו של בנימין נתניהו לקטאר. הצלם פיליפ… pic.twitter.com/jB5QKkR5ZD
— Bar Peleg (@bar_peleg) July 22, 2025
According to the Kan public broadcaster, Einhorn told the Israeli investigators that was misled about the documents, with Feldstein and a Bild reporter presenting Rosenfeld as a security official linked to the Prime Minister’s Office, leading him to think the leak of the files was authorized.
The Ynet news site reported that Einhorn said that when Netanyahu’s office asks him for assistance, he agrees, and that he acted on its authority when helping transfer the documents to Bild.
It also said Einhorn defended Urich in another ongoing probe known as Qatargate, in which the two of them and Feldstein are also suspects. The case primarily revolves around suspicions that Urich and Feldstein committed multiple offenses tied to their alleged work for pro-Qatari American lobbyist Jay Footlik while simultaneously working for the prime minister.
The Ynet report said Einhorn told the investigators, however, that he and Feldstein worked with Footlik behind Urich’s back, with the latter unaware of their activities.
Einhorn and Urich, who ran a public relations firm together, spearheaded a pro-Qatari campaign to cast Qatar in a positive light ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, hosted in Doha, according to Hebrew media reports at the time, which corresponds with the start of the probe’s timeframe.
The Times of Israel Community.