The defendant was also interrogated about the circumstances of the return of the phone from Samer to him. He claimed that the phone was returned to him at 'Udai's home in Haifa on Sunday, 28 August 2022, at around 9-10 P.M. That day, he was in Rishon LeZion in the afternoon and later at Abu Khalifa's house in Tel Aviv, and arrived in Haifa, directly to Udai's house, late in the evening. The defendant did not remember how long he was with 'Udai, but he testified with certainty that he was only with 'Udai that evening, and that it was Samer who came to 'Udai's house. The defendant did not know that Samer intended to go to Udai, and he does not know how Samer knew that he was with Udai. Anyway, Samer arrived, gave him back the phone, said he had bought a new phone and gave the defendant his number. The defendant repeated the claim that he did not know about the SIM swap from 685 to 761, and that he first heard about the SIM swap when he was asked about it during the interrogation. He first heard about the 761 from his lawyers, and it connected him to the new subscriber of the Summer-760. According to him, when he received the phone back, he thought that the SIM was still 685 [ibid., pp. 638-641].
In light of this version, the defendant was confronted with some of the findings that were found in the investigation of the conspiracy. At first, he was presented with locating findings that he was at Samer's address on Khoury Street in Haifa at 9:03 P.M. on Sunday, and only about an hour and a half later did he arrive in the area of Kiryat Eliezer, where Udai lives. The defendant insists that he was only with Udai and that it was there that he met Samer. But then his attention is drawn to the fact that at 21:03 a call is recorded from a 401 subscriber to a 760 subscriber, Samer's new subscriber, and if he hasn't met Samer yet, how did he know about his new number? The defendant has no explanation for this and does not remember calling Samer. He also claimed, as noted, that he knew about the new number only after the meeting with Samer, in which the phone was returned to him, and therefore he got into trouble trying to explain what happened, and only claimed that he was with Udai all the time, and that they may have gone down from under the house and met Samer there, but did not go anywhere else. Finally, he confirms that if he called from 401 to 760, then he probably got his phone back. But then he was confronted with the fact that the SIM of a 761 subscriber was inserted into his phone only at 10:11 p.m., more than an hour after the call from 401 to 760, that is, after he had already received the phone back, which means that he knew about the SIM change. The defendant refuses to confirm this and claims that he did not replace the SIM and did not see anyone else replace it. He was then confronted that shortly afterwards he sent a message on WhatsApp to two different numbers and informed them that his new number was 761. The defendant has no explanation for this, nor does he have any explanation for the fact that the next morning his brother Muhammad calls him for subscriber 761, so that he knows the new number, as well as Udai, from whom a call was also received [ibid., at pp. 649-642].