From the aforesaid, it emerges that the element of the "decision to kill" requires tracing the depths of the defendant's soul and the secrets of his heart, and generally, except in those cases in which the defendant confessed or explicitly revealed his intention and decisions, the existence of this element can be studied as part of drawing conclusions from the totality of the circumstances that accompanied the acts. In view of the inherent difficulty in proving this foundation, the case law held that it is possible to use the "presumption of intent", which has also been formulated auxiliary tests that can establish or strengthen the assumption regarding the defendant's intention to kill the victim, including: the manner in which the killing was committed, the means used to carry it out, the location of the injury to the victim' s body, the number of injuries to the victim and their intensity. and the defendant's conduct before and after the act of murder (see, for example, Criminal Appeal 3647/15 Al-'Asim v. State of Israel [published in Nevo] (29 March 2017); Criminal Appeal 6823/01 Senior v. State of Israel [published in Nevo] (25 March 2004); Criminal Appeal 9369/07 Mikel v. State of Israel [published in Nevo] (February 16, 2009); Criminal Appeal 7090/15 Khalifa v. State of Israel [published in Nevo] (August 25, 2016); and Y. Kedmi, on the law in criminal cases, ibid., at p. 1110).
As stated in section 301(c) of the law in its old version, the decision to kill can also be formulated in conjunction with the commission of the act, in the blink of an eye, due to a certain occurrence close to the fatal event, or even during it; When it was determined that this was sufficient for this purpose, a short period of time in which the murderer anticipated the consequences of his actions and aspired to achieve them (see, Y. Kedmi on Criminal Law, ibid., at p. 1102).
In our case, the existence of a decision to kill arises first and foremost from the defendants' own statements, from which it appears that the intention to kill the deceased in order to keep the drugs in their possession without paying for them, was formulated many hours before the incident. As stated, defendant 1 in his statements gave few details regarding the existence of prior planning and tried to present the event as a spontaneous event that took place at the initiative of defendant 2. However, from the statements of defendant 2 in his interrogations, it appears that the defendants discussed in advance the plan to kill the deceased, and that defendant 1 detailed to him in detail his plan to take the deceased to a secluded place, where the deceased and defendant 2 would talk from the front, while he would come from behind and hit the deceased's head in surprise, with a sock containing a stone. This is as it happened; He even initially planned to bury the deceased in the forest, but this did not materialize due to the pouring rain that fell at the time of the incident. As stated, although defendant 2 tried several times to reduce and obscure this version, apparently when he understood from the interrogators' wishes that it was also complicating him; He reiterated that he had not succeeded in dissuading defendant 1 from his plan, and confirmed that despite this, he accompanied defendant 1 and participated with him in the commission of the offenses (even though he claimed at the time that he acted under fear and threats).