SB 10.4.22

By the grace of the Lord, Kaṁsa felt sincere regret for having unnecessarily persecuted such Vaiṣṇavas as Devakī and Vasudeva, and thus he came to the transcendental stage of knowledge. “Because I am situated on the platform of knowledge,” Kaṁsa said, “understanding that I am not at all the killer of your sons, I have no responsibility for their death. As long as I thought that I would be killed by your son, I was in ignorance, but now I am free from this ignorance, which was due to a bodily conception of life.” As stated in Bhagavad-gītā (18.17):

yasya nāhaṅkṛto bhāvo
buddhir yasya na lipyate
hatvāpi sa imāḻ lokān
na hanti na nibadhyate
“One who is not motivated by false ego, whose intelligence is not entangled, though he kills men in this world, is not the slayer. Nor is he bound by his actions.” According to this axiomatic truth, Kaṁsa pleaded that he was not responsible for having killed the sons of Devakī and Vasudeva. “Please try to excuse me for such false, external activities,” he said, “and be pacified with this same knowledge.”