Likud condemned the “thuggish” arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aide Yonatan Urich, calling it “a new low in the political hunt to overthrow the prime minister and to prevent the dismissal of the failed Shin Bet chief.”
This comes shortly after Netanyahu, as well as two of his aides, Eli Feldstein and Urich, were arrested for questioning as part of the Qatargate scandal on Monday morning.
Likud’s statement said the “attempt to intimidate Yonatan Urich in order to extract a false testimony against the Prime Minister through extortion and wrongful detention is yet another criminal act by a panicked legal clique.”
The statement added that the investigation into the Qatargate scandal was fabricated by the Attorney-General’s Office and the Shin Bet chief after a previous inquiry into the PMO’s Secret Documents Affair “blew up in their faces.”
“For weeks, the Attorney-General’s Office and the Shin Bet chief have been conducting futile investigations in the dark under a gag order, in an attempt to prevent the dismissal of the Shin Bet chief, using Urich and others as cannon fodder.”
“Their goal is to carry out a coup d’état through arrest warrants,” Likud added.
“This is not an investigation. This is not law enforcement. This is an attempted assassination of democracy and an attempt to replace the will of the people with the rule of bureaucrats.”
Israeli politicians respond
On the other hand, Democrats leader Yair Golan praised the Attorney General’s decision to call Netanyahu for questioning, and accused the prime minister of attempting to sabotage and disrupt the Qatargate investigation.
“Netanyahu has not only failed in security matters, but he must also be investigated for the serious suspicion that he sold out Israel’s security for personal gain—the same money that funded Hamas and the October massacre, which reached the upper echelons of his office, and perhaps even him.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid questioned why the Likud statement did not contain the words “No one from Benjamin Netanyahu’s office received money from Qatar,” claiming the reason for the absence was because PMO employees did “receive money from a hostile country during wartime.”
“Of all the criminal security scandals in the Prime Minister’s Office, this is not only the most serious, it’s also the most disturbing and dangerous.”
Ongoing investigation
The Qatargate investigation is under gag order until April 10, but numerous Israeli media outlets reported that the two suspects were Eli Feldstein and Yonatan Urich, former and current members, respectively, of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s media team.
Urich and Feldstein were already detained and questioned 12 days ago. Now, they have been arrested and are expected to be questioned under a warning, according to Kan News.
Urich was arrested at his home for the first time, and Feldstein was brought in from house arrest. In addition, a journalist was summoned for an open questioning, Maariv reported.
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