FILE PICTURE: State prosecutor Gerrie Nel is seen during the Oscar Pistorius murder trial at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, Thursday, 13 March 2014. The Paralympian pleaded not guilty to murder, although he admits killing Reeva Steenkamp by shooting her through a locked bathroom door. He mistook her for a burglar in his house, saying he made a tragic but understandable mistake. The murder trial has been compared to that of the OJ Simpson case in the United States 20 years ago. Picture: Alet Pretorius/Media24/Pool
Former commander of the Boschkop, Pretoria, police station Colonel Giliam van Rensburg was talking prosecutor Gerrie Nel through a photograph of the window of Pistorius’s first floor bathroom in his Silver Woods Country Estate townhouse.
Van Rensburg told Nel he could find no signs of forced entry on the window.
It has three panes of frosted glass. The one on the right, closest to the toilet, was found open.
Pistorius claims someone broke into his house and hid in the toilet.
He shot through the toilet door, killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of February 14 last year.
Van Rensburg was the first police officer on the scene.
Another photo, this time of the bathroom window taken from the outside of the house, was displayed in court.
“There was no way someone could have come in through the window without the use of the ladder. I could see no marks on the wall,” Van Rensburg testified in Afrikaans.
Pistorius is accused of the premeditated murder of model and law graduate Steenkamp.
He is also charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, and two counts 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 fired a shot from his 9mm pistol through the open sunroof of a car while driving with friends in Modderfontein.
– Sapa
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