WATCH | Thabo Bester's harrowing interview claiming girlfriend's murder and rapes were 'accidental'

“I am responsible for her death, but I am not responsible for killing her.”

This is the logic used by the “Facebook rapist” Thabo Bester in his attempts to explain how the death of his then girlfriend Nomfundo Tyhulu was an accident while they were fighting over a knife.

Bester can be seen on camera as he sits in a dark room. He is being interviewed by the former head of the police investigative psychology section Dr Gerard Labuschagne after his arrest in 2011.

“I can't plead guilty to murder because I did not intentionally want to kill her. But I can plead guilty to bringing a knife into her presence.

“I'm not somebody you should worry about leaving a woman in one room with me, that I would rape her,” said Bester, who is on the run after one of the most audacious escapes from prison in South Africa's history.

“The murder [of Tyhulu], I feel it was just a pure, ‘we fight over a knife, somebody gets stabbed in the process’ and it was not ... If I wanted to stab her, I could have killed her in Durban.”

He details how if he really intended to kill Tyhulu he would have planned it much better.

“I could have killed her the first night we got to Cape Town. So that was not my intention. If I wanted to kill her I could have got her to Mthatha where there’s much less people and got her to a bush B&B and killed her there.

“So my intention was never to kill anyone. My intention was straightforward — I liked her. And things got twisted and we had a fight, the knife got out of hand. She was stabbed. I was stabbed in the process. I tried to stop it.”

Later he mentions again how if he wanted to kill his girlfriend he would have covered it up.

“I'm sure if I wanted to kill her I could have ... I'm not a stupid person. I could have done it in the way that the cops wouldn’t even know it was me. The rapes happened in a way that I did not know I was doing rape until I left the premises. Because if I knew I was doing rape, I could have covered myself by using certain methods so that my fingerprints were not there. So it only became known to me that it was rape when I left,” said Bester.

“And there's no-one in this world with two rape cases and there's a knife involved and I'm wanted by cops, if I went to the cops and said we had a fight, she got stabbed in the process ... No-one was going to believe me. So that's the first thing, because I thought of that. That was the first thing to do. Obviously, wake up the owners of the B&B and let them come and then call the cops and get an ambulance.

“But I thought if I do that, it's like me saying, ‘OK, I did the murder’. That is my reason for running from that point,” he said.

After the murder of Tyhulu, Bester went on the run, evading police for months before his eventual arrest. 

“But I also feel I am responsible for her death because if I did not bring the knife, she would not be dead. If I did not ask to come, she would not be dead.”

PODCAST | Thabo Bester is a 21st century headache for correctional services

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