Oscar Pistorius tweets not in contempt of court

“There is no prohibition on Oscar making public statements, whether via Twitter or otherwise,” Dario Milo said.

“He is perfectly entitled to do so and there can be no suggestion that he is in contempt of court. In any event, his comments on Twitter have nothing at all to do with the case.”

Pistorius, who is on trial for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, on Sunday tweeted a Bible verse, a collage of pictures of his humanitarian work, and an extract from Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning”.

Frankl, who died in 1997, was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and a Holocaust survivor.

The text reads in part: “…The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.

“In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honourable way – in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfilment.”

The verse from the Bible, Psalm 34:18 reads: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted”.

Last week, the defence closed its case in Pistorius’s murder trial in the High Court in Pretoria. Final arguments are expected to be heard on August 7.

The paralympian claims he shot Steenkamp by accident through the locked door of his toilet in his Pretoria home on February 14 last year. He believed she was an intruder about to emerge and attack him.

The State alleges he killed her during an argument.

Pistorius underwent a month-long psychiatric evaluation at Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital, after which the court heard he did not suffer from general anxiety disorder, as testified by a psychiatrist in his defence.

– Sapa