Oscar won’t budge on duvet on bed claim

This was despite blood spatters visible on the duvet, indicating that Pistorius carried Steenkamp’s bleeding body over it on his way downstairs, prosecutor Gerrie Nel told him during cross-examination.

Pistorius is on trial for the murder of Steenkamp on February 14 last year.

“Don’t you want to admit that the duvet was on the floor?” Nel asked Pistorius.

He said he did not remember the duvet being on the floor. A while later, when pressed again to concede that he had made a mistake about the duvet, he said “things changed so often in various photos”.

A photo of a pair of Steenkamp’s jeans lying on a corner of the duvet was displayed on screens around the court. Nel had his colleague zoom in on the photo to show blood spatters on the duvet and the carpet next to it.

If according to Pistorius, the duvet was on the bed, there would not have been blood on it. He has claimed police tampered with the scene.

Nel interrupted his questioning to ask Pistorius what was wrong. He had bowed his head and was pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

“My eyes are sore, my lady,” he replied.

Nel started asking him when the soreness began and kept insisting until Judge Thokozile Masipa intervened.

Nel relented and went back to the duvet.

Pistorius is accused of the murder of Steenkamp in his Pretoria townhouse 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.

– Sapa