Police declare Netanyahu’s ex-campaign adviser Einhorn a ‘fugitive’ evading arrest
Cops say warrant issued for Yisrael Einhorn, seek to bar Jonatan Urich from contact with those tied to classified document leak; both are also suspects in Qatargate case
Police on Monday declared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Serbian-based ex-campaign adviser Yisrael Einhorn to be a “fugitive criminal” and said there was an arrest warrant out for him.
It was the first time the police had made the declaration about the premier’s former aide, who is a suspect in both the Qatargate and leaked documents scandals.
The statement came during a hearing in which police sought a two-month extension on the release conditions placed on Jonatan Urich, another former close aide to Netanyahu, involving the theft of classified IDF documents and the leaking of one of them to the German daily, Bild.
The conditions include a ban on communication with other people involved in the scandal, as well as a prohibition on returning to work in the Prime Minister’s Office.
“Einhorn is a suspect in this affair and is being investigated for offenses of passing on confidential information, and an arrest warrant was issued against him,” police told the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court in this context, according to Hebrew media reports.
“Despite this, the above-mentioned person has avoided arriving in Israel and is a fugitive criminal,” the police said.
Einhorn lives in Serbia, where he has worked as an adviser to president Aleksandar Vučić.
He has not returned to Israel since a probe was opened last year into the intelligence leak, though he was questioned in Serbia by Israeli police in July, over his role in both the document leak and the Qatargate affair.
Einhorn, Urich, and fellow ex-Netanyahu aide Eli Feldstein are accused of leaking a classified IDF document to the Bild newspaper in Germany in summer 2024 to influence Israeli public opinion about hostage negotiations with Hamas.
Separately, in the Qatargate affair, Einhorn, Urich and Feldstein are accused of taking money to spearhead a public relations campaign to cast Qatar in a positive light for over a year after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, despite the Gulf state’s strong ties to the terror group, and doing so while working in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Urich was until recently under a separate, overlapping set of restrictions connected to the Qatargate scandal. The police, however, failed to request an extension to those restrictions before they expired.
The Times of Israel Community.