Oscar’s defence to call four witnesses

Judge Thokozile Masipa on Monday morning asked Barry Roux, for Pistorius, how many witnesses he would call.

He said three, which he did not expect to take long, and a fourth person from the correctional services department.

Masipa asked the same question of prosecutor Gerrie Nel.

“It’s difficult to say My Lady, we can’t anticipate what the defence will lead,” he replied.

The first defence witness, Pistorius’s therapist, psychologist Lore Hartzenberg then made her way to the stand, holding her bag and a bottle of water.

Four police tactical response officers were in court, two on either side of the judge’s bench.

On September 12 Pistorius was found guilty of the culpable homicide of his girlfriend, model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp, but not guilty of her murder.

Masipa found him 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 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. The State had argued he killed her during an argument.

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

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