Netanyahu says Qatargate suspect Urich ‘did not speak a single word to me about Qatar’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserts his innocence while addressing suspicions surrounding his adviser Jonatan Urich in the so-called Qatargate affair during this evening’s press conference.

Asked why he has not disavowed Urich in light of accusations that the top aide took Qatari money to spearhead a public relations campaign for Doha while working in the Prime Minister’s Office, Netanyahu claims that “Jonatan Urich did not speak a single word to me about Qatar — not even a syllable.”

“But I spoke about Qatar. I criticized Qatar — not once and not twice — during the war. I attacked it verbally because I had harsh criticism,” he says. “And I actually attacked in Qatari territory,” he adds, referring to the failed strke on Hamas leaders in Doha in September.

“I don’t know what happened with Jonatan Urich, [but] I do know what the judge said,” the premier continues, declaring that Judge Menachem Mizrahi of the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court — who has repeatedly ruled in favor of the premier’s aides, only to be overturned by a higher court – “said there are flying camels here. There is nothing here.”

While Mizrahi did recently rule that there was “no evidentiary” justification for continued restrictive conditions on Urich, he said so in the context of the Bild-leaked documents investigation, not the Qatargate investigation. And Lod-District Court Judge Yaakov Spasser overturned Mizrahi’s ruling on appeal, extended the restrictions on Urich, and said there was “reasonable suspicion, at a substantive level, that justifies the request.”