Fuelled by grievances, a close friend engaged in the ultimate act of "betrayal" when he lured a mate to a park, plied him with alcohol and bashed him in the head with a metal pole.
Ishtpal Singh, 32, stared straight ahead as a Victorian Supreme Court jury found him guilty of murder on Tuesday.
Members sitting in the public gallery wiped away tears as the decision was read aloud.
Jurors had accepted the prosecution's case that Singh was driven by grievances when he "carefully planned" the murder of his friend, Anmoral Singh Bajwa, in January 2025.
Singh had picked up Mr Bajwa on the evening of January 20 when they went to buy food and alcohol for a barbecue at Shillings Park, near the victim's home in southwest Melbourne.
Unbeknownst to his friend, Singh had earlier that day scoped out the park in Mambourin and hid a metal pole in shrubbery, prosecutor Jim Shaw told jurors.
After the pair ate and drank for more than four hours, security footage captured Mr Bajwa on a video call while Singh relocated the metal pole closer to where they were sitting.
Just after midnight, 17 metal clangs echoed through the empty park as Singh brutally bashed his friend in the head with the pole.
Mr Bajwa suffered catastrophic head injuries and died at the scene.
Singh then drove to Echuca to see his ex-wife before handing himself in to police.
An emotional Amandeep Singh Bajwa on Tuesday remembered his brother as a kind and helpful person who was always there for the community.
The traumatic footage of his brother's final moments, played to the court, had been seared into his mind, Amandeep said.
"He was not a tricky guy," he told AAP by phone after the verdict.
"This was betrayal by his best friend."
He hopes his brother's murderer receives a life sentence.
"When we saw the video of him hitting (Mr Bajwa), we could feel that pain.
"This was like the sky falling on our heads."
Jurors heard that months before the murder, Singh decided to get involved in a dispute between mutual friends over a transport company.
The killer took issue when Mr Bajwa opted to "stay out of it".
Meanwhile, he became angry after the pair decided to split the costs of buying a truck only to discover he needed to pay an extra $5000 in commissions to Mr Bajwa's friend who assisted with the deal.
Singh also blamed Mr Bajwa for his permanent residency visa being revoked.
Defence barrister Tim Marsh conceded his client only intended to harm his friend, arguing Singh had been "seriously mentally unwell" and could not understand that his conduct was wrong.
He said Singh's paranoid psychosis led to delusions that people he knew were "conspiring to ruin his life".
But that was rejected by jurors.
Singh will be sentenced at a later date.
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Australian Associated Press