Prosecution seeks to bar Urih from the Prime Minister’s Office

Developments in the BILD affair. The State Prosecutor’s Office filed a notice today with the Tel Aviv District Court amending the security-related indictment, in which it is requesting a series of restrictions on Prime Minister’s adviser Jonathan Urich. The request is למעשה an amendment to the original indictment filed against Eli Feldstein and reservist Arye Rosenfeld, on suspicion of stealing secret and sensitive information from IDF Intelligence systems and publishing it in the German newspaper Bild.

The amended indictment includes Jonathan Urich, who serves as the Prime Minister’s personal communications adviser, as a defendant. Urich is charged with conveying secret information with intent to harm state security, conveying secret information, possession of secret information, and destruction of evidence. The filing of the indictment was approved by the attorney general and the state prosecutor. Urich in one of the court hearings. Archive (Yonatan Shaul).

Restrictions against Urich

At the same time, the prosecution is asking to impose restrictive conditions until the end of proceedings with respect to Urich, including a full ban on entering the Prime Minister’s Office and a ban on entering any security facility or any place where secret information may be kept; and a prohibition on direct or indirect contact with anyone involved in the case, including witnesses and suspects.

The indictment was filed over the theft of highly sensitive secret information from IDF Intelligence systems, including raw intelligence, and its subsequent publication in a foreign media outlet, after the censor broadly barred its publication, in order to influence public discourse on how to handle the hostage issue. According to the indictment, Urich and Feldstein used highly classified information from the military system to influence the media discourse. In this framework, Feldstein and Urich worked to publish one of the reports in the German newspaper Bild, knowing it was secret and despite being aware that the military censor had not allowed its publication in Israel, while taking a real risk of harming vital security interests.

In addition, Feldstein, in advance coordination and with Urich’s approval, passed on information he received from Rosenfeld to additional unauthorized parties. The actions of Urich, Rosenfeld and Feldstein led to the exposure of the existence of a secret intelligence capability, its abilities and its modes of use. The public exposure of the secret information could cause real harm to Israel’s security interests, especially in the areas of intelligence collection and the exposure of intelligence sources through which human lives are saved, since it reveals missions, capabilities, methods and classified means used by the intelligence community in various arenas.

The day after Feldstein and Rosenfeld were arrested, Urich replaced his mobile phone and intentionally refrained from transferring the messages that were on his previous phone, in order to prevent them from being heard as evidence. It should be noted that Urich is already facing an indictment in the case of the alleged harassment of the then state witness Shlomo Filber. A decision on the indictment in the Qatargate case is still pending with the attorney general and the State Prosecutor’s Office.