Roux grills first witness

Barry Roux, SC, for Pistorius, said Michelle Burger’s statement given to police several days after the athlete shot and killed his girlfriend last February did not match her testimony on the witness stand.

Burger, who lives about 170m from Pistorius’s home, was the first witness the prosecution called on Monday as the paralympian went on trial for premeditated murder.

She told the High Court in Pretoria on the night Steenkamp died, she was woken by a woman’s repeated cries for help, followed by four gunshots.

The screams subsided after the last shot.

Roux argued that this point was not reflected in her statement, which was initially written in Afrikaans.

Burger, a lecturer in economics and construction at the University of Pretoria, stood firm under relentless questioning and said there was no contradiction between her statement and her testimony.

Roux repeatedly told her to “just listen to the question please” when he was not satisfied with her replies.

Burger said: “My statement is a few pages long. I’ve been testifying for hours and I can explain the minute details to the court.”

As he did on Monday, prosecutor Gerrie Nel objected on a point of interpretation of language.

He said Burger had accurately relayed her statement, and the difference Roux sought to suggest was due to the translation of the statement from Afrikaans to English.

Nel said there were some phrases and words that could be explained in a shorter way in Afrikaans but needed a lengthier explanation in English.

At another point in the cross-examination, he called Roux out for being sarcastic, forcing Pistorius’s counsel to apologise.

Pistorius, who pleaded not guilty on Monday, listened attentively to the proceedings. He has insisted that he believed he was firing at an intruder hiding behind his locked toilet door when he shot and killed Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day.

After a tea break, Roux put it to Burger that the similarities between her statement and that of her husband were too “striking” to be credible as their independent recollections of the events of the night Steenkamp died.

He argued that he believed Burger was prejudiced against Pistorius and that her version was influenced by the negative media coverage he had endured since the shooting.

“It drives to draw an inference that subsequent to your statement … including the negative you have come to court and you wanted to make it quite clear that from your perspective his (Pistorius’s) version could not be true.

Burger responded: “My Lady, the media did not alter what I heard.”

Earlier on Tuesday, media was given a stern warning after a picture of Burger was used in violation of a court order.

“I am warning the media, if you do not behave, you will not be treated with soft gloves,” said Judge Thokozile Masipa in the High Court in Pretoria.

She ordered that no photographs of witnesses may be used no matter the source of the picture if the witness had asked that photos not be used.

Though the trial is being televised live, Burger has asked that her face not be shown on screen.

– Sapa