Defence to call at least 14 witnesses – Oscar trial
Oscar Pistorius's defence intends calling between 14 and 17 witnesses to testify in the paralympian's murder trial, his lawyer Barry Roux told the High Court in Pretoria on Monday.
FILE PICTURE: Barry Roux, lawyer for Olympic and Paralympic track star Oscar Pistorius, is seen during his trial for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, Monday, 17 March 2014. Pistorius is on trial for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his suburban Pretoria home on Valentine’s Day last year. He says he mistook her for an intruder. Picture:Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters/Pool
They would give evidence on matters including wound ballistics, sound, gastric emptying, lighting, disability, and the cricket bat marks Pistorius made in the door of his toilet, Roux told the court.
Judge Thokozile Masipa granted Roux’s request that pathologist Jan Botha testify before Pistorius. Prosecutor Gerrie Nel had no objection to this. Roux said Botha had to do so for “family health reasons”.
Botha said wound ballistics was “the study of the effects of a projectile on human tissue”.
Pistorius is expected to testify in his defence this week, to explain how, according to him, he accidentally shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp through the locked toilet door of his home on February 14 last year.
Pistorius has been charged with the murder of Steenkamp and contraventions of the Firearms Control Act.
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
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