Feldstein’s lawyer: He believed he was acting on behalf of PM, was surprised by Netanyahu’s disavowal

The lawyer representing Eli Feldstein, the aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicted over the alleged theft and leak of classified documents, says his client believed he was acting on behalf of the premier.

“The indictment indicates that Feldstein contacted [senior Netanyahu aide Jonatan] Urich about the information he received from the Military Intelligence Directorate and said that he needed the prime minister for this matter,” attorney Oded Savoray tells the Kan public broadcaster.

“From that moment on, everything that Urich said or wrote to Feldstein was perceived by Feldstein at the time, quite rightly, as things being said on behalf of the prime minister,” Savoray says.

“Jonatan Urich is the more senior aide, who has worked at the [Prime Minister’s] office for 10 years and has the prime minister’s ear,” he says.

Savoray says he does not understand why Feldstein, who has been in custody for a number of weeks, is being treated differently from Urich by law enforcement.

“Feldstein is a junior official who acted according to the instructions of his superiors, and he certainly feels like a victim,” Savoray says.

The attorney also says his client was surprised by Netanyahu’s initial disavowal of Feldstein, but says the premier’s statement last night improved the situation. He notes, however, that “the prime minister has still not addressed the real essence of the incident.”

The indictment indicates that Urich is the figure to whom Feldstein turned for guidance on the matter of the documents. Urich has reportedly twice been questioned under caution in the case.

Feldstein was charged on Thursday with transferring classified information with the intent to harm the state, a charge that can carry a sentence of life in prison, as well as illicit possession of classified information and obstruction of justice.

Feldstein is accused of leaking the document, which was stolen from an IDF database by the other defendant in the case, an IDF noncommissioned officer (NCO), in a bid to sway public opinion against a truce-hostage deal in Gaza. He allegedly received the document in June, and leaked it after six hostages were murdered by their Hamas captors at the end of August, when public criticism of Netanyahu’s handling of negotiations on a hostage deal was at a height.

The Bild report on the document highlighted Hamas’s obdurate strategy regarding the hostages, and Netanyahu cited it as ostensible reinforcement of his refusal to sanction a deal to end the war against Hamas in return for the release of the hostages.