Oscar: did the window slide or slam?
Prosecutor Gerrie Nel asked murder-accused Oscar Pistorius on Monday why his claim that he heard his bathroom window slam open was never in his plea explanation.
State prosecutor Gerrie Nel is seen at the murder trial of paralympian Oscar Pistorius at the high court in Pretoria, Friday, 11 April 2014. Picture: Craig Nieuwenhuizen/Media24/Pool
“In your plea explanation you had all the facts. You understood everything that your legal team was doing?” Nel asked Pistorius during cross-examination in the High Court in Pretoria.
“You understood the plea explanation. You signed it?”
Pistorius agreed.
Nel pressed Pistorius on why “slamming” was not mentioned in his plea statement. According to the statement, he heard the window, which was not fitted with burglar bars, sliding open.
At one point, Pistorius corrected Nel, saying it slammed against the frame, not the other window.
“You again corrected me on small detail,” said Nel.
He has pointed out that Pistorius has been able to remember some details but not others.
“It’s not small detail. It’s detail of what happened,” Pistorius said.
In his bail application statement, drawn up before the plea statement, Pistorius merely mentions that he heard a noise from his bathroom.
This prompted him to get his gun and fire four times through his toilet door, killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. He says he thought she was an intruder.
Nel said at the start of proceedings on Monday that the theme of the day was tailoring of evidence.
He said Pistorius changed “a noise” to “sliding open” between his bail and plea statements, and then to “slamming open” in his evidence in court.
Pistorius has been charged with murdering Steenkamp in his Pretoria townhouse on February 14 last year, which, according to the State, happened during an argument.
He shot her through the locked door of his toilet, apparently thinking she was an intruder about to come out and attack him.
He is also is also charged with three contraventions of the Firearms Control Act, one of illegal possession of ammunition and two of discharging a firearm in public.
He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013.
On September 30, 2012 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.
Pistorius has denied guilt on all the charges.
– Sapa
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