2016-11-07Staff Report 2 Windhoek - An emotional and teary-eyed Andre Friedel Castro Dausab, the man accused of the brutal murder of his pastor-in-training girlfriend whose throat he allegedly slit at her flat at the United Lutheran Paulinum Theological College in Pioneers Park, testified in his own defence on Friday. Often bursting into tears, Dausab described his relationship with the deceased, 33-year-old Gofaone Motlamme, as “very confusing”. He said it was like she did not know what she wanted, he said. “At one time we were back together and then she would push away again, saying she did not want me,” he told High Court Judge Naomi Shivute during his testimony. Regarding the vicious assault which landed him in court, Dausab said he could not remember anything. “We were in her flat arguing about her having someone else in her life, but she did not want to answer my questions,” he said. According to him he slapped her once in the face to make her tell him and also took out a nail clipper to scare her into talking. It was then that the deceased went into the kitchen and fetched a knife, he said. “I knew she would not harm me with the knife because I knew she was not a violent person, but I just reacted and tried to grab the knife from her,” Dausab said while crying another round of tears. While they struggled for the knife they fell to the floor with him on top of her, he said, and continued: “When I tried to stand up, my hand slipped on something and when I looked I saw blood on my hands and on the knife.” He said he did not intend to kill the deceased. “That thought never crossed my mind,” he told Judge Shivute, adding: “I loved that woman.” According to Dausab “darkness” overcame him and when he came to he was outside in the street stopping cars. He further said on a question from his legal aid lawyer, Bronell Uirab, that he could not recall how the two broken knives found in the kitchen and the one found in the bedroom got there. “The only knife I remember was the one we were struggling over,” he said. Speaking in a low, but clearly audible voice Dausab described the deceased as his soul mate and said he could not have murdered her the way the state alleges. According to him from the moment he got up from the floor in the kitchen until he went outside the flat in the street was a blank. “I don’t know how I exited the flat. I can’t recall getting dressed or taking the cellphones,” he said while wiping tears from his eyes. “There was no desire or intention from me to wish her dead. We all have problems in relationships, but it is not a reason to wish death on someone.” According to Dausab the reason he was at the flat of the deceased was to reconcile, to save the relationship. He then said: “But it does not matter anyway, because even if I am telling the truth, nobody would believe me, even my previous lawyer asked me who would believe me. My intention was to prove to her that I am worthy of her love, worth fighting for.” Dausab said he is not an evil person. “Not every person who kills has the heart of a killer,” he said, and continued: “I am not an evil person, but I am not innocent either, but that does not mean that I am guilty of murder.” He concluded by saying that it is wrong to try and force someone to be with you and it is wrong to stab someone, adding: “It is not right to take a life.” Dausab is charged with murder for allegedly stabbing Motlamme at least 25 times all over her body. The summary of substantial facts in the indictment says that after he stabbed the deceased, Dausab “left the seriously injured and screaming deceased inside the flat” after he locked the entrance door to the flat and fled the scene. Motlamme allegedly did not die immediately, but after a while due to her injuries. 2016-11-07Staff Report 2
