The door through which Reeva Steenkamp was shot used as evidence and displayed during the Oscar Pistorius murder trial at the high court in Pretoria, Monday, 14 April 2014. Picture: Antoine de Ras/Independent Newspapers Ltd/Pool
Pistorius said he rammed the door with his shoulder and tried to kick it open.
“You did all that knowing the door opened inside out?” prosecutor Gerrie Nel asked him.
“Yes, my lady,” Pistorius answered, directing his answer to Judge Thokozile Masipa.
Pistorius explained that he wanted to get the door open.
He claims to have mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder, and that the shooting was an accident.
Pistorius said as he tried to get the door open, he still had his loaded gun in his hand.
He could not explain why he had not put it down.
Nel also questioned why Steenkamp’s jeans were found inside-out in Pistorius’s bedroom that morning.
“Why did she leave her jeans inside-out?” Nel asked Pistorius.
“Did she not take it off quickly and not have time [to turn it the right way round]?” Nel asked.
Pistorius said he did not know why Steenkamp had left her jeans that way.
On Monday, the court heard that Steenkamp was a very neat person.
All the clothes she had taken to Pistorius’s home had been neatly placed in her overnight bag, except for her jeans and a pair of slip-slops found next to Pistorius’s bed.
She was wearing shorts and a top on the morning she was killed.
– Sapa
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