As noted above, this version of defendant 2 regarding the existence of a premeditated plan to kill the deceased, despite his attempts to reduce and obscure his part in that planning, is consistent with many other evidence, some of which is independent and of great weight, including: the telephone conversation that took place between the defendants a few hours before the incident, in which defendant 2 sought to verify that the deceased had no relatives in Israel, a conversation that Defendant 1 also agreed in his interrogation that it expresses a premeditated plan to kill the deceased; the torn white socks found near the deceased's car, with human blood on them, with marks that could be reconciled with the fact that a stone was inserted into them for the purpose of beating the deceased, just as defendant 2 said that defendant 1 had planned in advance; and the defendants' behavior before the incident – changing their clothes for dark clothes, leaving their mobile phones at the home of defendant 1, and transporting the deceased to a remote and isolated place under false pretenses.
More than necessary, I will add that the manner in which the act of killing was carried out can also attest to the existence of a prior intention on the part of the defendants to kill the deceased. Admittedly, the defendants did not equip themselves with a "typical" lethal weapon in advance, but rather the plan was to hit him with a stone that would be inserted into the sock, taking advantage of the surprise factor, and then continue to beat him together. However, as appears from the statements of defendant 1 to the police (and to a more qualified degree also the statements of defendant 2), the defendants beat the deceased in a brutal and cruel manner. Thus, for example, Defendant 1 described that after the deceased fell and hit his head with a stone, "I see [Defendant 2] continuing to hit him, and he says to me, 'Hit him, hit him,' and I hit the person. Until I didn't know, I just went crazy. I don't know, like... With everything I want, with stones, with my hand, with everything... In the area of the head and abdomen... and [Defendant 2] grabbed me, told me, 'Calm down, calm down' (P/4, pp. 4, 17-29); and Defendant 2 said that Defendant 1 "took a sock that had a stone in it and gave [the deceased] a stone, and I was afraid of the pressure, I jumped on [the deceased], held him and [Defendant 1] just blew it up, punched him, kicked stones, a regular stone from the ground, banged him on the head" (P/12, Q. 20-22).