FILE PICTURE: A relative of the late South African model Reeva Steenkamp holds the funeral ceremony program at the crematorium building in Port Elizabeth on February 19, 2013 after Steenkamp, 29, was shot four times in the early hours of February 14, 2013 by a 9mm pistol owned by South African sporting hero Oscar Pistorius. AFP PHOTO
Ballistics expert Thomas “Wollie” Wolmarans, testifying in Pistorius’s defence, said Steenkamp could not have been sitting on the toilet seat when the shots were fired.
“The deceased was not sitting on the toilet seat. Her pants were pulled up and the shot was fired through her pants,” said Wolmarans.
The paralympian claims he thought Steenkamp was an intruder when he shot her dead in his lavish Silver Woods, Pretoria, home on February 14 last year.
He shot through the locked door of his toilet, hitting Steenkamp in the hip, arm, and head. He has been charged with murder.
He 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 has denied guilt on all charges.
Wolmarans said another expert could give the court a different version of probable events on that fateful Valentine’s Day morning.
Earlier, Judge Thokozile Masipa and her two assessors inspected a toilet cubicle erected inside courtroom GD.
Prosecutor Gerrie Nel invited the judge to examine the reconstruction of the toilet before he began his cross-examination of Wolmarans.
Laser beams were shining through the bullet holes in the door. The exhibition was meant to assist in the identification of the trajectory of the bullets fired by Pistorius.
The trial continues.
– Sapa
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