The Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court rejected a police request on Thursday to extend restrictions on key Qatargate suspect Jonatan Urich from contacting others involved in the affair, as well as a new request to ban him from working in the Prime Minister’s Office.

The court delayed the implementation of the decision by three days, however, to give the police the opportunity to appeal.

The ruling followed a hearing the previous day, when police requested to extend restrictions on Urich for another 60 days, and to bar him from working in the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the basis that it would constitute a threat to state security due to his work with Qatar.

Urich, along with Netanyahu’s former spokesman Eli Feldstein, allegedly spearheaded a pro-Qatari public relations campaign to cast Qatar in a positive light for over a year after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, despite the Gulf state’s strong ties to the terror group.

Urich is suspected of multiple offenses in the affair, including accepting a bribe from Qatar, contact with a foreign agent and breach of trust.

Rejecting the request on Thursday, Judge Menahem Mizrahi was strongly critical of the police, saying there was no justification for requesting the ban on Urich, a close aide to Netanyahu,........

© The Times of Israel