Pistorius did not check bedroom door

“Why did you not check the bedroom door… if she left through the bedroom door?” prosecutor Gerrie Nel asked Pistorius during cross-examination.

He has been charged with murdering Steenkamp — his girlfriend at the time — around 3am on Valentine’s Day last year.

“I thought it would be a very strange thing,” he said.

Nel was asking Pistorius what he did moments after he fired four times through the door of his toilet, saying he was thinking an intruder was about to emerge and attack him.

He claims Steenkamp got out of bed in the dark without him noticing and went to the toilet.

Pistorius said after the shooting he ran down the passage on his stumps and checked whether Steenkamp was on the bed, behind the curtains, or on the floor. He then ran back to the bathroom to look for her.

“Why would you think it’s Reeva in the bathroom if you hadn’t checked everywhere?”

Pistorius said he was calling out for her. Nel found it strange that Pistorius quickly went from thinking he had shot an intruder to thinking he had shot Steenkamp.

Nel: “I have difficulty with the huge leap from shooting an intruder to shooting at Reeva.”

Pistorius: “I was crying out for her and she wasn’t responding. Then it dawned on me that it could have been Reeva.”

According to the State, the shooting happened during an argument.

Pistorius is also charged with three contraventions of the Firearms Control Act, one of illegal possession of ammunition and two of discharging a firearm in public.

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.

He has also denied guilt on these three charges.

– Sapa