Gerrie Nel starts closing arguments

Nel, as he had done several times during the trial, brought the focus back to Reeva Steenkamp.

“We have to sit back and to think about what happened to the deceased in this matter. This is the portion of the trial where we have to think about her,” he said.

Barry Roux, for Pistorius, concluded his arguments after one-and-a-half hours.

On September 12, Judge Thokozile Masipa found Pistorius guilty of the culpable homicide of model and law graduate Steenkamp, but not guilty of her murder. Pistorius had claimed he thought there was a burglar in his toilet when he fired four shots through the locked door in the early hours of February 14 last year, killing Steenkamp.

Masipa found Pistorius guilty of discharging a firearm in public, when he shot from his friend Darren Fresco’s Glock pistol under a table at Tasha’s restaurant in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, in January 2013.

Pistorius was found not guilty on two firearms-related charges – illegal possession of ammunition, and shooting through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein on September 30, 2012.

– Sapa