Qatargate: Urich and Feldstein Released from House Arrest

The President of the Magistrate Courts in the Central District, Menachem Mizrahi, rejected the police's request to extend the house arrest of Prime Minister's advisors Urich and Feldstein, who are suspects in the "Qatar-Gate" case. Although the police requested to extend the house arrest for another twenty-one days, the judge decided not to grant the request, not even for a single day.

Judge Mizrahi contradicted the police's claims, ruling that there was no obstruction of justice, and that the investigation activities do not justify continued detention. Judge Mizrahi said, "The police have confirmed several times that they have not engaged in any actual obstruction since their release."

The judge further criticized the police investigators: "Why are you requesting an extension of detention for Feldstein and Urich? What justifies this? I have never seen anything like this!"

As previously reported, the two were arrested and investigated in the "Qatar-Gate" case, which examines alleged connections the two maintained in Netanyahu's office serving Qatar, to improve its image in Israel. About two weeks ago, it was decided to release them to house arrest in the case. Feldstein, meanwhile, is also a suspect in the document leaking case.

Yesterday, journalist Ben Caspit revealed in 'Maariv' that during Netanyahu's testimony in the case, investigators asked him who Eli Feldstein was and what his role was. Netanyahu replied: "Eli Feldstein is nothing" and made a dismissive hand gesture.

According to the report, this segment of the investigation, like additional segments, was shown to Feldstein by Lahav 433 investigators, ahead of one of Feldstein's confrontations with Jonathan Urich. When Feldstein saw this, he was "shocked and even upset."

Ben Caspit further reported that during the same investigation, Netanyahu was asked how he could say Feldstein was nothing, after recently defining him as an Israeli patriot and enthusiastic Zionist. Netanyahu replied: "I said what I was told about him, I don't really know him. Many advisors circulate here and he was one of many, nothing special."

Feldstein was deeply hurt by this. Nevertheless, these statements align with what he himself told investigators during questioning - that his direct "boss" in Netanyahu's office was Urich.