WE CAN’T possibly weigh the level of competence and fairness in South African, or as someone on the cable shows referred to it, CSI Johannesburg. But watching and reading the news reports it’s clear that conflicting stories are swirling at every angle. What isn’t in question is that Reeva Steenkamp was unarmed and shot behind a closed door.
The judge confronted Pistorius in court on Tuesday, after the athlete was seen continually weeping in court.
Please maintain your composure,” Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair told a weeping Pistorius. “You need to apply your mind here. You need to get your composure right. You need to concentrate on what is going down.”
During the second day of bail hearing, it was offered that the fatal shots had come “from high angle,” which would dispute Pistorius’s lengthy and detailed statement that he fired at the bathroom without his prosthetic legs on.
Arresting officer Hilton Botha told the court today that the 26-year-old was standing in the master bathroom when he shot the supermodel, who was crouched in a defensive position behind a locked door in a smaller powder room. He also said that the bullets that were fired had been fired from high up, and the bullets seemed to be coming in a downward direction.
[...] Botha said today that he attended Steenkamp’s postmortem, and that she had three entrance wounds: one on the head, one in the elbow and one in the hip. Describing the scene to the court, Botha said that the shots fired into the bathroom were aimed at the toilet bowl. The shooter “would have to walk into the bathroom and turn directly at the door to shoot at the toilet the way the bullets went,” he said.
The prosecution opened its arguments on Wednesday by citing a statement from a witness saying there had been “nonstop talking, like fighting” from 2 to 3 a.m. at the Pistorius home on the morning of the shooting. The prosecutors are seeking to depict the killing as happening after an argument.
As a police investigator described Ms. Steenkamp’s wounds to the right side of her head, arm and hip, Mr. Pistorius broke down in tears.
[...] While Mr. Pistorius had said the house was dark when he heard what he thought was an intruder, the prosecution cited a witness as saying a light had been switched on when the first shot was fired.
A witness heard a gunshot, then the sound of a woman screaming, then more shots, the prosecution said. But the defense disputed the prosecution testimony, saying the neighbor who claimed to have overheard an argument in Mr. Pistorius’s home in fact lived 600 yards away.
There is also the cricket bat, which Pistorius alleges he used to break the door down.
Testosterone and needles were also reportedly found, with the contention in the press seeming to swirl around the legal aspect of the type of T discovered. This does not, however, address the effect this drug has on men and the aggression it can impart, whether it’s a banned substance or not.
Oscar Pistorius was also discovered to have an offshore account and a house in Italy, though that’s been disputed, so there is obviously concern that he is a flight risk.
Nike and Oakley have now pulled their sponsorships of the Pistorius.
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