Netanyahu aide to remain in custody until Monday after Supreme Court rejects appeal
Appealing arrest, Jonatan Urich’s lawyers appear to admit he worked for Qatar, assert it’s not an enemy state; suspect applauded by supporters as he arrives at hearing
The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an appeal against a decision to keep Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top aide, Jonatan Urich, in custody over his alleged involvement in the Qatargate scandal.
Judge Yechiel Kasher stated in his ruling, “I am satisfied that there was no miscarriage of justice in the district court’s decision. The appeal is denied.”
The Qatargate affair has revolved primarily around suspicions that two Netanyahu aides — Urich and Eli Feldstein — committed multiple offenses tied to their alleged work for a pro-Qatar lobbying firm, including contact with a foreign agent and a series of corrupt actions involving lobbyists and businessmen, all while working for the prime minister.
Urich was re-arrested on Wednesday night following developments in the case, but a Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court judge ordered that he be released while questioning the legality of the latest detention.
The state appealed that decision to Lod’s Central District Court, which ruled in its favor. That led to an ultimately unsuccessful Supreme Court appeal by Urich’s lawyers.
At the Supreme Court session, lawyers for Urich appeared to admit that their client had worked for Qatar, stating that charges against him were invalid since it is not officially an enemy state.
In the request, Urich’s lawyers claimed that the district court “made a mistake in defining the offense,” adding that Qatar isn’t defined by Israeli law as an enemy country and arguing that “many officials in Israel, including very senior defense officials,” regularly work with the Gulf nation.
They also argued that Urich, as a private individual providing services to the premier’s Likud party rather than a state-employed official, “is allowed to concurrently work in any role.”
Urich was applauded by his supporters as he entered the Supreme Court hearing on Friday afternoon. Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman and Netanyahu spokesperson Topaz Luk attended the hearing in solidarity with the suspect.
The Central District Court overturned the magistrate’s court’s decision to free Urich from detention as well as from house arrest, with the judge saying his remand should be extended as suspicions against him had “significantly strengthened in the past day.”
Qatar has been a key mediator, along with Egypt and the US, in Gaza hostage-ceasefire negotiations. In recent years it also sent vast amounts of money, including hundreds of millions of dollars in cash delivered with the support of Netanyahu, into Gaza — funds that IDF and Shin Bet probes have said helped finance Hamas’s war machine and the terror group’s October 7, 2023, invasion and slaughter in southern Israel.
Urich had been brought in for questioning on Wednesday afternoon regarding new evidence the police wished to ask him about, and was arrested just after midnight.
Police sought to extend his detention by five days and extend Feldstein’s house arrest by 30 days, but a judge refused both requests and granted police 24 hours to file an appeal against his decision.
The judge also raised substantive questions over the investigation, pointing out that although Urich and Feldstein were doing work for the prime minister, they were not employed as formal employees of the Prime Minister’s Office and were therefore not civil servants.
Only civil servants can be charged with crimes such as bribery and breach of trust, which police wish to level against the two suspects.
The ongoing investigation continues to expand, and the Shin Bet and police are now probing the involvement and business connections of two former security officials with Qatar, Hebrew media outlets reported Thursday.
According to Haaretz, the two former Mossad agents were recently questioned by the Shin Bet, and the police are seeking to question further suspects in connection with the affair.
One of the former security officials under investigation is a former Mossad official, referred to only as “Shin,” who worked in cooperation with Qatari intelligence during his time at the spy agency and today does business in Qatar, Channel 12 news reported.
The second suspect was said to be David Saig, an Israeli businessman, a former Mossad official and a close friend of Shin, who was Saig’s boss during their time in the Mossad.
Saig himself has been questioned under caution as a suspect in the Qatargate investigation.
According to Channel 12, Shin owns a company with retired IDF general Yoav Mordechai, who formed connections with the Qataris during his time as head of the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).
Police suspect that Mordechai connected two of the central suspects in the Qatargate affair, Urich and former Likud election campaign manager Yisrael Einhorn, to the Qatari government when they did public relations work for Doha ahead of the 2022 World Cup.
Urich and Einhorn are also suspected of having a business relationship with Shin and Saig, said Channel 12.
The report further said that Shin and Mordechai’s company has a relationship with a German company owned by Gil Birger, another Israeli businessman suspected of having transferred money from pro-Qatari lobbyist Jay Footlik to Feldstein.
The Times of Israel Community.