‘Corruption and decay’: Opposition slams Netanyahu after Urich indictment

Opposition figures accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his inner circle of endangering state security after Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara announced her decision to indict Jonatan Urich, a senior adviser to the premier, over the leak of classified documents to Germany’s Bild newspaper.

“The prime minister cannot embrace a person accused of deliberately harming the State of Israel,” Opposition leader Yair Lapid says, adding that Netanyahu’s “innermost circle is drowning in corruption, decay and the advancement of personal interests instead of the interests of the public.”

Democrats party chairman Yair Golan says the indictment shows that “Netanyahu’s closest circle is endangering state security.”

“In any normal country, a prime minister whose closest advisers are accused of harming state security would immediately suspend them and cooperate with investigators,” Golan says. “But Netanyahu is acting as though the State of Israel is his private property and the law does not apply to his associates.”

Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot says the decision to indict Netanyahu’s “closest adviser” is a reminder that the premier “never distanced himself from [Urich] for a moment and continues to employ him in the holy of holies of the State of Israel.”

Meanwhile, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir attacks Baharav-Miara over the decision, saying he does “not believe a single word” from the attorney general.

“Jonatan Urich is an Israel-lover, a professional, whom the fired attorney general, who is on a witch hunt, wants to remove from the Prime Minister’s Office at any cost,” Ben Gvir says in a statement.

According to the Attorney General’s Office, Urich will be indicted on charges of transmitting classified information with the intention of harming state security, possession of classified information and destruction of evidence.