Likud reacted sharply (Monday) to the arrest of Yonatan Urich, a close advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in the 'Catargate' affair.
According to the party, this is a political move with foreign motives, aimed at extracting false testimony against the prime minister and keeping the head of the Shin Bet in his position.
"The thuggish arrest of Yonatan Urich is a new low in the political hunt to overthrow a right-wing prime minister and to prevent the dismissal of the failed Shin Bet head," the Likud said.
"After the fabricated investigations initiated by the Attorney General's Office and the head of the Shin Bet into the falsification of protocols in the Prime Minister's Office and the blackmailing of an officer in the Prime Minister's Military Secretariat blew up in their faces, they invented another new fabricated affair about Qatar, which will also explode very quickly."
Likud also claims that this is legal manipulation: "The attempt to intimidate Yonatan Urich in order to force him to testify falsely against the prime minister through blackmail with threats and false arrest is another criminal act by a frightened legal clique."
According to the party, "For weeks, the attorney general's office and the head of the Shin Bet have been conducting futile investigations in the dark under a gag order, in order to try to prevent the dismissal of the Shin Bet head, using Orich and others as cannon fodder. Their goal is to carry out a coup d'état through arrest warrants."
"This is not an investigation. This is not law enforcement. This is an attempted assassination of democracy and an attempt to replace the will of the people with the rule of officials."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was summoned today to give open testimony in Lahav 433, in light of developments in the Cattergate affair, primarily the arrest of suspects Yonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein.
The investigation will take place at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem.
The prime minister's advisers, Urich and Feldstein, were arrested as part of the investigation into the affair. The two are suspected, among other things, of contact with a foreign agent and money laundering.
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