Wrapping up five days of relentless cross-examination
of Oscar Pistorius at his murder trial, the chief prosecutor insisted on
Tuesday that he intentionally shot his girlfriend to death after they
argued and in a final exchange urged the Olympic athlete to take
responsibility for the Valentine’s Day killing.
“Who
should we blame for the fact that you shot her?” prosecutor Gerrie Nel
asked Mr. Pistorius. It came right at the end of Mr. Nel’s intense
scrutiny of nearly every aspect of the double-amputee runner’s story
that he killed Reeva Steenkamp last year after mistaking her for a
dangerous intruder.
“I don’t know, my lady, I was
scared,” Mr. Pistorius replied, his voice cracking slightly as he
addressed the judge and maintained his argument that he shot through a
toilet cubicle door in his home at a perceived intruder who he thought
was about to attack him.
It’s a story the prosecutor dismissed as “improbable”.
Mr.
Nel accused Mr. Pistorius, the one-time star of disabled sport, of
tailoring evidence and concocting the version to cover up that he killed
Steenkamp intentionally after a late night fight.
Mr.
Pistorius steered away from a direct response to the prosecutor’s
invitation to take the blame for Steenkamp’s killing, saying only that
he opened fire because he believed his life was under threat. That
remark drew barbed follow-up questions from Mr. Nel.
“We
should blame somebody ... Should we blame Reeva?” asked Mr. Nel, who
has harshly criticised Mr. Pistorius as someone who is unwilling to take
responsibility for his actions.
“No, my lady,” Mr. Pistorius replied, addressing Judge Thokozile Masipa in line with court custom.
“She never told you she was going to the toilet,” Mr. Nel said. Then he asked, “Should we blame the government?”
When
Mr. Pistorius responded with another reference to a perceived attacker
in his toilet, Mr. Nel asked, “Who should we blame for the Black Talon
rounds that ripped through her body?”
Mr. Nel said
the court “will” find that Mr. Pistorius, 27, is lying and intentionally
killed the 29-year-old model and rising reality TV star. That drew an
objection from defence lawyer Barry Roux.
In the
adjournment after his cross-examination, Mr. Pistorius rubbed his eyes
and briefly sank his head onto the shoulder of a man who had been
sitting with his family. He took a tissue from his sister Aimee, who
squeezed his arm reassuringly. Shortly afterward, he listened
attentively as Mr. Roux spoke to him in a low voice.
Mr.
Nel asserted that the couple fought during the night of the shooting
and Steenkamp wanted to leave, and then fled to the bathroom screaming
before Mr. Pistorius shot her through the door with his 9 mm pistol. Mr.
Pistorius said he never heard Steenkamp scream, or say anything in the
minutes before he shot her.
The prosecutor even
charged that Mr. Pistorius fired the four shots from about three metres
away from Steenkamp as he was talking and arguing with Steenkamp, and
changed his aim with later shots to ensure that he hit her as she fell
back. Mr. Nel’s unrelenting questioning and accusations provoked many
denials by Mr. Pistorius and caused the athlete to break down in sobs on
numerous occasions.
“Unfortunately I have to put it to you that it’s getting more and more improbable,” Mr. Nel said to Mr. Pistorius of his story.
Mr.
Pistorius struggled at times to explain alleged inconsistencies during
his testimony and the Paralympic champion faces 25 years to life in
prison if convicted of premeditated murder.
“I was
terrified. I feared for my life. I was just scared,” Mr. Pistorius said.
“I was thinking about what could happen to me, to Reeva. I was just
extremely fearful.”
During cross-examination, Mr.
Pistorius gave a sometimes muddled account of the shooting, saying he
feared for his life but also didn’t intentionally shoot at anyone,
prompting Mr. Nel to query if his defence was self-defence or
“involuntary action”.
Mr. Pistorius also told Mr. Roux he didn’t consciously pull the trigger on his gun and said it happened “before I could think”.
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