Shortly after escaped serial rapist Benny Sela was caught Friday night, Ynet managed to interview him in his cell at the Nahariya Police Station. In response to a question on the motive for his escape, Sela said: “They stabbed my and abused me in prison.'
By 7:50 p.m. Friday the two-week-long manhunt ended and the most dangerous rapist in Israel’s history was caught in the area of Kibbutz Lohamei Hagitaot, after a family member reported on his whereabouts to police.
Looking gaunt and shrunken, Sela explained: “On Sunday I left a letter in Binyamina by the train station in which I explained to Amos Yaron (ed.: chair of the commission of inquiry into the circumstances of Sela’s escape) why I escaped.”
“They beat me. Every minute an agent comes in and beats me. Tell them to let me breath,” he pleaded to the Ynet reporter. “They beat me in the ribs,” he added. Immediately following the conversation, Sela was taken out by Tel Aviv central district police to be interrogated.
Due to his escape, Sela will be transferred to a high security prison with a special solitary confinement ward for special prisoners.
On Saturday morning Sela arrived at the Rimonim jail, where among others convicted assassin Yigal Amir is serving his term.
Upon his arrival, Sela told his wardens: “I’m tired and hungry. I want to sleep.”
The ward comprises a number of isolated cells. Each prisoner spends 23 hours in the cell and is permitted one hour in the prison yard. His hour outside is also spent alone, and he will have no contact with other prisoners. These conditions are far more severe than those he was held under previously at the Eshel prison.
Sela’s visiting rights will also be reduced. He will be allowed only visits from immediate family members, with a panel separating the prisoner and his visitors. He will also be allowed only half hour per day to use the public telephone.
Friday evening, officers of the Northern District police force were smiling from ear to ear. None of them imagined they would be the ones to succeed in capturing the nation’s most talked about felon. Even a few hours after his capture, the police officers found it hard to conceal their excitement, and repeatedly reconstructed the story of Sela’s capture.
Head of the Nahariya police team which captured Sela, Asaaf Div, told Ynet: “We were on duty. We received reports that we were after a vehicle and we had to set up roadblocks. On route 4, the roadblock was busted through. Eighty meters from there, we identified a car pulled over on the shoulder. We approached it and saw someone running from the vehicle. Ashraf Avid, another cop who was with me, and I ran after him. We overcame him and cuffed his hands.”
At this stage the officers were not yet certain that their quarry was indeed the escaped convict. More officers arrived at the scene. “He kept trying to cover his face with his hands. We couldn’t say for sure that this was him. Only once we reached the station and the youth officer recognized him almost certainly, did we understand who it was that we had in hand,” Div added.
Sela said at first that his name was Usama. He was positively identified at the Nahariya Police Station by his fingerprints. “It’s a great feeling. You can’t have a better feeling than this,” Div said.