Cross-examination to continue Monday
The cross-examination of ballistics expert Thomas "Wollie" Wolmarans is due to continue in Oscar Pistorius's murder trial in the High Court in Pretoria on Monday.
Forensic expert Wollie Wolmarans gives evidence at the murder trial of paralympic star Oscar Pistorius at the high court in Pretoria on Friday, 9 May 2014. Picture: Herman Verwey/Media24/Pool
Questioned by prosecutor Gerry Nel on Friday, Wolmarans highlighted differences between his conclusions and the State’s.
Wolmarans was initially called to testify in defence of the paralympian, who is charged with murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. He shot her dead through the locked door of his toilet in his Pretoria home on February 14 last year. Pistorius has denied guilt, saying he thought she was an intruder about to open the door and attack him.
On Friday, Wolmarans sought to dispute the evidence of police ballistics expert and State witness Captain Chris Mangena. Mangena testified earlier in the trial that Steenkamp was shot in the hip as she stood behind the door, then the arm and head after she fell into a half-seated position onto the magazine rack in the toilet.
Wolmarans said he did not believe Steenkamp was covering her head with her left hand when she was shot in the head, as Mangena had submitted.
Wolmarans said brain matter found on the wall and floor was not on Steenkamp’s left hand. He testified that he found a fragment of a bullet in Pistorius’s toilet bowl, which investigators had missed. An accurate determination of the sequence of the shots or Steenkamp’s body position when she was shot was not possible, he said.
– Sapa
