Gerrie Nel challenges moving magazine rack claim

“That magazine rack never moved. That was where she ended up, with her head on the toilet,” prosecutor Gerrie Nel told Pistorius during cross-examination.

“That’s not correct my lady,” Pistorius replied.

He is accused of murdering Steenkamp in his Pretoria townhouse on February 14 last year. He shot her through the locked door of his toilet, apparently thinking she was an intruder about to emerge and attack him.

She was hit in the hip, arm, and head. Pistorius claimed he heard the rack moving before he fired the shots.

Nel showed the court a photo of the cubicle. It shows the rack next to the toilet, one of its legs in a pool of blood.

“It never moved into the blood,” said Nel, pointing out the absence of smear marks on the floor.

“It looks like it was picked up and placed there,” Pistorius replied.

This was the third time Pistorius claimed something was moved around after Steenkamp was shot. He previously suggested that police moved a fan into the balcony door of his bedroom and a duvet off his bed onto the floor.

Nel pointed to blood smears on the rack and on the wall behind it, saying they were made by Steenkamp’s blood-soaked hair.

Pistorius said the mark on the wall might have been caused by a sock from his prosthetic leg.

“The blood would not have covered the area around the leg if it had slided (sic) in there,” said Nel.

“I don’t know if I agree with that,” Pistorius replied.

The paralympian also faces three charges of contravening the Firearms Control Act.

– Sapa