Oscar Pistorius admits he had no reason to fire shots that killed
girlfriend
Oscar Pistorius has admitted he had “no reason” to fire the shots
that killed his girlfriend as a prosecutor grilled him about another
incident in which a gun went off in his possession.The Paralympic
sprinter insisted he killed Reeva Steenkamp by accident at his home on
Valentine’s Day last year, but could not explain why he pulled the
trigger. Pistorius, 27, spent a full day under gruelling
cross-examination by prosecutor Gerrie Nel at the high court in
Pretoria, South Africa. Pistorius claimed he thought he had heard an
intruder, but repeatedly refused to say he intended to shoot anyone.
Nel challenged him: “We know for a fact there were no intruders in
your house that night, we know for a fact there was no ladder against
the wall. We know for a fact that you had no reason to shoot,
objectively speaking.”Pistorius told the judge: “That’s correct, my
lady.””So why shoot?” Nel asked. Pistorius explained: “I heard a noise
coming from the toilet that I interpreted as someone coming out to
attack me.”Nel pressed him: “Accidentally your fingers pulled the
trigger?”When Pistorius agreed, Nel said: “At the intruder?”But
Pistorius countered: “At the door.”As Nel became exasperated, Pistorius
broke down, his voice shaking as he insisted: “It was an accident.”
Earlier, Nel addressed another charge relating to an incident at a
restaurant in Johannesburg in which a shot went off after a friend of
the runner passed him a loaded gun under the table.Pistorius insisted he
did not have his finger on the trigger when the gun fired. The
prosecutor noted that a police expert had testified that the gun could
not be fired without pulling the trigger, and sarcastically described
the discharge as a “miracle”.Nel asked: “The gun went off by
itself?”Pistorius was adamant: “I know that my finger was not on the
trigger.”Nel, incredulous, went on: “We have you in possession of the
gun, a shot went off, but you didn’t discharge the gun.”
Pistorius said: “I didn’t pull the trigger. I didn’t have time to
think.”Nel mimicked him sarcastically: “I’m a gun enthusiast, I didn’t
have time to think.”Nel also grilled Pistorius on another of the charges
against him, that the athlete had rounds of .38-calibre ammunition in a
safe at his home without a licence.
Pistorius pleaded not guilty to the charge and said it was his
father’s ammunition, put there for safekeeping.Nel said Pistorius’s
father, Henke, had refused to make a statement to police about the
ammunition. Henke was present at Pistorius’s bail hearing, but has not
attended the trial.
Nel, staring at Pistorius, told him: “You are lying. You just don’t
want to accept responsibility for anything.” He also forced Pistorius to
admit that he sometimes illegally left a magazine of bullets in his
bedside table, including on 13 February 2013, the day before the
tragedy.Nel pointed to police photos of Pistorius’s bedroom and
suggested they were inconsistent with the athlete’s account of waking
up, speaking to Steenkamp and getting up to bring in two fans. “When you
got up you had an argument,” Nel said. “That’s why she ran away
screaming.”
The prosecutor referred to WhatsApp messages between Pistorius and
Steenkamp which he said portrayed the athlete as self-centred and
egotistical.
He said the phrase “I love you” appeared only twice and, on both
occasions, it was written by Steenkamp to her mother. “Never to you and
you never to her,” Nel said.Pistorius responded: “I never got the
opportunity to tell Reeva that I loved her.” Nel also accused Pistorius
of ignoring the concerns of Steenkamp’s family by apologising to them at
the beginning of his testimony this week instead of doing so in private.
Nel said: “Why would you create a spectacle in court, in the public
domain, in the public eye? Why did you put them through this?” He added,
in a recurring theme of this cross-examination:
“Your life is just about you … “You will blame anybody but yourself.”
Pistorius said his lawyers had been in touch with representatives of
Steenkamp’s family and he had believed the family of his girlfriend was
not ready to meet him. He said: “I completely understand where they’re
coming from. It’s not that I haven’t thought about them.”
The Guardian
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