Key Qatargate suspect Urich wiped phone 2 days after arrest of another suspect

Jonatan Urich, a key suspect in the classified documents leak scandal, did a factory reset to his phone a day and a half after Eli Feldstein, who has now been indicted over the affair, was arrested in late October 2024, Kan news reports.

Urich, who the attorney general intends to indict over the case subject to a hearing, reportedly erased all the information on his phone and then switched to a different phone without transferring the data from the old phone.

The police suspect Urich was trying to destroy information related to the classified documents affair, as well as the Qatargate case in which Urich and Felstein, both aides to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are both also suspects.

Urich claimed during police questioning that he does a factory reset on his phone from time to time in order to prevent the use of spyware against him, and said he was advised to do so by security officials. He also denied having known that Feldstein had been arrested, despite the two of them working together on a daily basis.