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By Citizen Reporter

Journalist


Witness owns gun himself – Oscar Trial

A witness who heard gunfire from Oscar Pistorius's house owns a firearm and is confident he can identify the sound of a shot, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Thursday.


“A cricket bat striking a door would make a different sound than the sharp sound of a gunshot,” Charl Johnson said to questioning from Barry Roux, for Pistorius.

“I can confidently say I heard gunshots.”

He told the court he owned a 9mm pistol.

Roux has been trying to suggest that the shots Johnson said he heard could have been Pistorius breaking down the door of his toilet with a cricket bat. The houses of the two men are 177m apart.

Pistorius sat listening to Johnson’s testimony, at one point pressing his fist to his mouth, thumb resting on his cheek. A sketch artist stood to the side of the court, focusing his attention on Pistorius’s brother Carl.

Pistorius is accused of the murder of Reeva Steenkamp in his Pretoria townhouse on February 14 last year. She was shot through the closed door of Pistorius’s toilet.

He is also charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, and two counts 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.

In September 2010 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

Sapa

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Barry Roux Charl Johnson Oscar Trial

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