Earlier, I described the responses provided by the defendant to the indictment, when an alibi claim was first made on his behalf, more than a year and a half after the indictment was filed. I will recall that at first a general verbal heresy was given, and later, on April 7, 2024, a written response was submitted, which included a sweeping and laconic denial of all the facts alleged in the indictment. It was only following the court's comment that "there is no positive version or reference whatsoever to the defendant's actions, even with regard to his stay at the time and place," was a supplement to its response submitted on April 15, 2024, according to which "on August 26, 2022, at 7:00 A.M., the defendant left his home together with another, in a Mazda car. THE DEFENDANT AND THE OTHER DROVE TOWARDS THE CITY OF BE'ER YA'AKOV - THE WHOLESALE MARKET IN TZRIFIN, IN ORDER TO PURCHASE FOOD (HUMMUS, FALAFEL, TAHINI, ETC.) BY TAKE-AWAY FROM THE KHLIL RESTAURANT OF THE TZRIFIN BRANCH. After the defendant and the other received the food they had purchased at the Khalil restaurant, the two went out in the direction of the defendant's house, driving in the Mazda. The two arrived at the defendant's home between 8:10 and 8:15 a.m. The defendant did not leave his house until 2:00 P.M., when he went out with another, driving a white Mercedes." From the outset, and as the accuser rightly points out in her summaries, this is an alibi claim that has been conquered over a long period of time. We will return to this point later, and I will even emphasize that this version has also undergone changes and developments in the defendant's testimony in court, which I will now refer to.
The defendant testified at the beginning of the defense case, and his testimony spanned two days of hearings. Initially, on September 11, 2024, the defendant's main testimony was heard, and later he was cross-examined by the learned prosecutor. At the end of this hearing, and in light of the new information provided by the defendant in his testimony, the accuser conducted a conspiracy investigation, and on September 25, 2024, the defendant's cross-examination continued, and he was confronted with the information collected as part of the investigation of the conspiracy. I will describe the defendant's versions, as given in each of these stages.