Jane Steenkamp (L), Reeva Steenkamp's mother is comforted by unidentified relative after her dead daughter's picture was shown on screen during the trial of South African Olympic and Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.
Reeva Steenkamp was pleading to her boyfriend Oscar Pistorius from behind their locked bathroom door when he shot her dead, the prosecutor in the Paralympian’s trial claimed.
Gerrie Nel, the state lawyer, said it was “the only reasonable explanation” for the nature of Steenkamp’s death when Pistorius shot the model at his Pretoria home in the early hours of St Valentine’s Day last year.
He said the 27-year-old athlete’s claim that he thought Steenkamp was an intruder who had climbed through his bathroom window was “so far-fetched” as to be “improbable“.
“She wasn’t scared of an intruder,” Nel told Pistorius. “She was scared of you. She was standing right in front of the toilet door, talking to you, when you shot her. That’s the only reasonable explanation why you shot her in the head.”
Nel also challenged Pistorius on why he had not asked his girlfriend if she heard the window being opened before heading for the bathroom with his gun.
He referred to couples among Pistorius’s neighbours who gave evidence saying that they heard gunshots and a woman screaming, pointing out that they asked their partners what they heard.
“She was awake. Did you not ask her, ‘Reeva, did you hear that?’ That’s a reasonable thing to do,” Nel said. “You were in a situation of danger, why did you not confer? I say a reasonable person would have looked where Reeva was, that she was safe, but you didn’t — you just grabbed your gun. On your own version, you did not find out that she was OK or scared.”
“My whole being was fixated on this person in the bathroom,” Pistorius replied.
Nel asked Pistorius why he ran towards the threat if he felt vulnerable, rather than hiding with his girlfriend on the balcony or behind the bed. “Because if I stayed where I was, Reeva and I would have been in danger,” the athlete said.
“If you had stayed in that room, Reeva would still be alive,” Mr Nel replied.
Pistorius insisted he was justified to seek out his gun. He told the judge “things happen every day” in South Africa involving people being attacked in their homes. He said it was his “instinct” and “personality” to disregard his disability and seek to protect his girlfriend.
“I find your instinct strange. Instinct would have been to make sure Reeva was safe,” the prosecutor replied.
Nel continued: “What was your intention? You got your gun and you released the safety mechanism. Why? You wanted to shoot.” Pistorius responded: “There’s a massive difference between being ready for a confrontation and wanting to shoot someone.” Mr Nel moved on to the “most improbable” part of Pistorius’s account.
“Reeva is three metres away from you in the toilet when you were shouting to her to call the police, and she never uttered a word?” he asked. “She would be scared, she would shout out and talk to you. You are in the same room.”
Pistorius insisted that he knew his girlfriend and she would have been too frightened to make a noise. “She would have perceived the danger was coming closer. She would have stayed quiet.” He added tearfully: “I wish she had screamed out, let me know she was there.”
Throughout the day, Mr Nel told the athlete he was changing his story, at one stage telling him his lengthy explanations were designed to cover his tracks.
Pistorius responded angrily, saying he had not changed his version since the statement he gave to his bail hearing last year. “The state’s case has changed many times, mine has stayed the same,” he said. But at one stage, Judge Thokozile Masipa agreed with Mr Nel that Pistorius was making “mistakes“.
“Are you making these mistakes because you’re too tired?” the judge asked him, saying it was important he was “not at a disadvantage” in the witness box to ensure his rights were protected. Pistorius insisted he was, but later, blamed tiredness for apparent contradictions on another issue. Mr Nel told him he was struggling because he was “covering up a lie“.
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