State Prosecution Adds Jonathan Urich as Defendant in the “Bild” Case

The State Prosecutor’s Office filed an amended indictment against the prime minister’s adviser for passing on secret information and destroying evidence. It is also seeking to bar him completely from the Prime Minister’s Office and from security facilities until the end of the proceedings.

A political and legal earthquake shook the Prime Minister’s Office today, Thursday, when the State Prosecutor’s Office submitted to the Tel Aviv District Court a notice amending the security indictment in the case of the theft of classified documents, and added Jonathan Urich, the personal and close communications adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as a central defendant. Urich is charged with a series of serious security offenses, including passing on secret information with intent to harm state security, passing on secret information, possessing secret information, and destroying evidence. The amended indictment was approved personally by the attorney general and the state prosecutor.

Alongside the filing of the indictment, the prosecution submitted an urgent request to impose severe restrictive conditions on Urich until the end of the legal proceedings. Among the conditions requested were: a complete and definitive ban on entering the Prime Minister’s Office, a prohibition on entering any security facility or any place where classified information is held, and a sweeping ban on direct or indirect contact with those involved in the case, including witnesses and suspects.

According to the indictment, Urich and former Prime Minister’s Office spokesman Eli Feldstein knowingly used classified information at the highest level of secrecy, taken from IDF Intelligence systems, including raw intelligence. The two acted to publish the information in the German newspaper Bild, fully aware that the military censor had broadly barred its publication in Israel, and with the aim of manipulatively influencing public discourse on the issue of dealing with the hostages.

The indictment emphasizes the heavy damage caused by the two to state security. The actions of Urich, Feldstein, and reservist Ari Rosenfeld led to the exposure of a secret intelligence means, its operational capabilities, and the ways it is used. This exposure, it is clarified, could gravely harm vital Israeli security interests, endanger intelligence sources used to save lives, and reveal classified operational methods of the intelligence community.

The charge of destroying evidence against Urich stems from an action he took immediately after the arrests in the case began. According to the facts, the day after Feldstein and Rosenfeld were arrested, Urich hurried to replace his mobile phone and deliberately refrained from transferring the messages that were on the old device, in order to prevent investigators from using them as incriminating evidence against him. The investigation into the case was conducted by Lahav 433 of the Israel Police, and now the center of gravity is shifting to the District Court, alongside the expected public upheaval in the Prime Minister’s Office.