Police seek to question ex-Netanyahu aide living in Serbia in ‘Qatargate’ case

Police seek to question Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former aide Yisrael Einhorn, who now lives in Serbia, amid investigations of several people in the premier’s inner circle for allegedly leaking stolen military intelligence and receiving payments from Hamas-backer Qatar.

Amid a Shin Bet probe of the so-called “Qatargate” case, Einhorn’s mother, legal scholar Talia Einhorn, has recused herself from deliberations in the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee on Netanyahu’s controversial bid to oust Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.

The committee would need to review the candidacy of Netanyahu’s pick for a successor to Bar should the agency’s director indeed be removed. The cabinet last week voted to fire Bar, but the High Court of Justice has issued a temporary injunction against the move and is set to review petitions against Bar’s ouster. In the meantime, it has allowed Netanyahu to interview potential successors.

Einhorn on Wednesday wrote to the chair of the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee, former Supreme Court President Asher Grunis, that her recusal aimed to preempt “false claims that will surely arise.” According to Haaretz, Einhorn’s recusal could delay the appointment of a successor to Bar.

Opposition figures have accused Netanyahu of seeking to stymie the Qatar investigation and to offload onto Bar the premier’s own failures surrounding the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023. Bar himself accused the government of ousting him to thwart Shin Bet investigations, while Netanyahu has slammed the investigations against his staffers as a “witch hunt,” and the aides have denied wrongdoing.

Netanyahu’s top aide Jonatan Urich, and the premier’s former military spokesman Eli Feldstein, have been questioned in the Qatar case on suspicion of contacting a foreign agent, fraud, money laundering, and bribery.

Feldstein was also indicted in November for harming national security in a case involving the leak of stolen military intelligence to German tabloid Bild. Urich has been interrogated in the case, but Yisrael Einhorn has not been questioned in either case because he lives abroad.

In recent days, Kan reported, police and the State Attorney’s Office have discussed how to investigate Einhorn and others involved in the scandal who are currently abroad. It was unclear if Einhorn would also be questioned over the documents leak case.

Kan reported this week that the Justice Ministry had greenlit a probe of Einhorn. The report quoted associates of Einhorn as saying he “welcomes the procedure and will be glad to give authorities his version of events as soon as possible.”

The report did not specify whether the interrogation would take place in Israel or abroad. Serbia would have to agree to any interrogation within its borders. Kan described the legal relations between Serbia and Israel as “complicated.”

Einhorn, who currently serves as an adviser to Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, has not returned to Israel since the intelligence leak probe began last year. According to Kan, Einhorn had previously tried to negotiate a deal with the State Attorney’s Office on coming to Israel to testify, but the talks fell through.

The “Qatargate” probe investigation was launched last month following claims that Feldstein, who was previously a spokesman for Netanyahu, worked for Qatar via an international firm contracted by Doha to feed Israeli journalists pro-Qatar stories while he was employed in the Prime Minister’s Office.

According to Kan, the probe’s focus is on alleged Qatari payments to Netanyahu’s close circle between May 2022 and October 2024.

While the payments, according to Kan, may have begun earlier, the May 2022 date would roughly match the reported start of a campaign for Doha by Einhorn and Urich’s public relations firm Perception ahead of the 2022 Qatar World Cup. Feldstein has also worked for Perception, Kan reported in February, but it was unclear if he was part of that campaign.

Last week, Kan published recordings of Israeli businessman Gil Birger saying he had funneled funds to Feldstein from a lobbyist working for Qatar.

Feldstein’s lawyers said the money Feldstein received from Birger was for services he provided “for the Prime Minister’s Office, and not for Qatar.”

They claimed that the payments to their client were a “temporary and partial solution by people in the Prime Minister’s Office” to an “issue that arose regarding his salary,” but did not specify why Feldstein could not be paid by his direct employer.

Responding to Feldstein’s defense team, Urich’s lawyers denied their client’s involvement in the payments, saying he had “no idea who Gil Birger is.”

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