Pistorius can’t recall intruder mention

“Mr Pistorius says he can’t remember telling you he thought she was an intruder,” Pistorius’s lawyer, Barry Roux, told Johan Stipp, who was testifying in Pistorius’s murder trial.

“He recalls asking you to help him,” said Roux.

Stipp maintained that Pistorius had told him this.

The radiologist lives close to Pistorius’s home at the Silver Woods Country Estate in Pretoria.

He was one of the first people to arrive on the scene after Pistorius fatally shot Reeva Steenkamp at his Pretoria home.

On Thursday, he gave a chilling account of how he walked into Pistorius’s home to find him kneeling beside Steenkamp at the bottom of his stairs, trying in vain to resuscitate her.

Stipp said Pistorius said: “I shot her. I thought she was a burglar. I shot her.”

He told the court that Pistorius had his fingers in Steenkamp’s mouth, trying to clear her airway.

He said Pistorius pleaded with God to save Steenkamp, claiming he would dedicate both his and Steenkamp’s lives to God.

As Pistorius stands trial, he maintains that he had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder.

The State, however, was trying to prove that Pistorius committed premeditated murder when he shot Steenkamp through the locked bathroom door at his home.

– Sapa