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Pistorius Weeps as He Resumes Testimony Prosecutor Hammers Away as Pistorius Resumes Testimony
(about 4 hours later)
PRETORIA, South Africa — Oscar Pistorius, the disabled track star accused of murdering his girlfriend, broke down in racking sobs on Monday during a fourth day of grueling cross-examination in which the prosecution accused him of shooting her deliberately. PRETORIA, South Africa — It came down to a question of improbabilities and a “great leap.”
In sharp questioning, Gerrie Nel, the prosecutor, pressed Mr. Pistorius to relive the moments before he opened fire at a locked door to a toilet cubicle in his home in the early hours of Feb. 14, 2013. Mr. Pistorius has repeatedly said that he did not know who was in the cubicle. “I didn’t fire to attack,” Mr. Pistorius said, “I didn’t have time to think.” On the fourth day of relentless cross-examination at his murder trial, Oscar Pistorius was taken back to the early hours of Feb. 14, 2013, when he shot his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, 29, in what the prosecution says was an act of premeditated murder and the track star, a double amputee, says was a mistake.
“You fired at Reeva,” Mr. Nel told him bluntly, referring to Mr. Pistorius’s girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. In close detail, the prosecutor, Gerrie Nel, had Mr. Pistorius, 27, relive the final intimate moments of Ms. Steenkamp’s life, as the athlete walked unsteadily down an unlit passage on his stumps from his darkened bedroom, a pistol in his right hand, and into a bathroom where he fired four rounds at the locked door of a toilet cubicle, believing, by his account, that at least one intruder was behind the door.
For the second time in the testimony Monday morning, Mr. Pistorius broke down, saying in a choked voice, “I did not fire at Reeva.” Then, Mr. Pistorius said, “I ran down the passage. I ran past my bed” to look for his girlfriend and call for help.
The court was adjourned after Mr. Nel, nicknamed the Pit Bull for his aggressive techniques as a prosecutor, told Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa, “My lady, if the witness is emotional, may we take a break?” “When I realized that Reeva wasn’t on the bed, that was the first time I thought it might be Reeva in the bathroom,” Mr. Pistorius said.
As he rose for the brief adjournment, Mr. Pistorius stood with his eyes closed. But, Mr. Nel said, the “first thing you would think is that you would check whether she left through the bedroom door” rather than assume she had been in the locked cubicle.
When the session resumed, Mr. Nel’s insistent questions also did, despite objections from the defense that the prosecutor was repeatedly going over old ground. It required a “great leap” for Mr. Pistorius to go from believing that he had shot intruders to suspecting that he had opened fire on his girlfriend, said Mr. Nel, whose reputation as a pugnacious prosecutor has earned him the title pit bull.
Mr. Nel asked why Mr. Pistorius had not warned the intruders that he was armed. “You were armed but you never said you were armed,” he said. “You see, Mr. Pistorius, this is one of the most crucial issues that makes your version so improbable,” Mr. Nel said, seeking to establish that the athlete’s evidence on the stand was, in the prosecutor’s words on Monday, “so improbable that it cannot possibly be true.”
The athlete replied that he had not wanted them to know. The exchanges went to the core of a case that has drawn a global audience and transfixed many in South Africa as the hearings, which opened on March 3, focus in ever greater detail on the state of Mr. Pistorius’s mind in the early hours on Valentine’s Day 2013, when, the prosecution maintains, he killed Ms. Steenkamp in a jealous rage.
Why, then, had he fired, Mr. Nel asked. Mr. Pistorius responded by saying that he had heard a sound like “wood moving,” perhaps when a door was opened or a magazine rack inside the cubicle was moved. “I wasn’t thinking,” Mr. Pistorius said. “I was screaming to the person or persons to get out.” The spectacle of the trial also offered a stark counterpoint to the days of 2012 when Mr. Pistorius, a double amputee since infancy, not only triumphed at the Paralympic Games but also competed against able-bodied athletes at the London Olympics a month earlier, earning great adulation. On his return home, he and Ms. Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, were depicted as a gilded couple.
But that glittery trajectory of success and celebrity has collapsed. Headlines that once lauded Mr. Pistorius now focus on his increasing discomfort as a hard-nose prosecutor sets out to paint a picture of inconsistency, improbability and mendacity. If convicted of premeditated murder, he would face a minimum prison term of 25 years.
Twice during Monday’s questioning, Mr. Pistorius broke down, as he has several times in the trial, his shoulders heaving as he sobbed. On other occasions, his voice quavered as he testified and, ashen-faced, he seemed on the brink of tears.
But his displays of deepening distress drew only a sarcastic question from Mr. Nel, who asked, “You are not using your emotional state as an escape are you?”
The prosecutor argued that forensic evidence linking the gunshots and Ms. Steenkamp’s wounds proved she had been standing in the cubicle facing the door when Mr. Pistorius opened fire.
“She was talking to you,” Mr. Nel said. “Why would she be there except if she was talking to you?”
Mr. Pistorius said repeatedly that he had not known who was in the cubicle. “I didn’t fire to attack,” he said. “I didn’t have time to think.”
“You fired at Reeva,” Mr. Nel said bluntly.
“I did not fire at Reeva,” Mr. Pistorius said in a choked, strained voice, seeming overwhelmed. The court adjourned briefly to permit him to compose himself. But when the session resumed, Mr. Nel’s insistent questions did, too, despite objections from the defense that the prosecutor was repeatedly going over old ground.
Why had Mr. Pistorius not warned the intruders that he was armed, he asked. “You were armed but you never said you were armed,” Mr. Nel said.
Mr. Pistorius replied that he had not wanted them to know.
Why, then, had he fired, Mr. Nel asked.
Mr. Pistorius said he had heard a sound like “wood moving,” perhaps when a door was opened or a magazine rack inside the cubicle was moved. “I wasn’t thinking,” he said. “I was screaming to the person or persons to get out.”
“You never gave them the chance,” Mr. Nel responded. “You said to them to get out, then never gave them the chance to do it.”“You never gave them the chance,” Mr. Nel responded. “You said to them to get out, then never gave them the chance to do it.”
Witnesses for the prosecution have said that they heard a woman screaming as the shots were fired. Mr. Pistorius contends that the voice was his, but that it was higher than usual because he was struck by fear. “I fired in quick succession,” Mr. Pistorius said. “I discharged my firearm as quickly as I could.”
“I fired in quick succession,” Mr. Pistorius said, “I discharged my firearm as quickly as I could.”
So “why did you only fire four rounds,” Mr. Nel asked. “Why not empty the magazine?”So “why did you only fire four rounds,” Mr. Nel asked. “Why not empty the magazine?”
“I pulled the trigger, my lady,” Mr. Pistorius told the judge, addressing the bench rather his questioner, as is the practice in South Africa. “Because I perceived danger to be coming out to attack me. The firearm was pointed where I perceived the danger to be.”
Was it just by luck, then, that the gun was pointed at Ms. Steenkamp, Mr. Nel asked.Was it just by luck, then, that the gun was pointed at Ms. Steenkamp, Mr. Nel asked.
“How could that be lucky?” Mr. Pistorius said, choking up for a third time. “She lost her life.” “How could that be lucky?” Mr. Pistorius said, choking up. “She lost her life.”
“Mr. Pistorius, you are trying to get emotional again,” Mr. Nel said, suggesting that the court adjourn for lunch.“Mr. Pistorius, you are trying to get emotional again,” Mr. Nel said, suggesting that the court adjourn for lunch.
Earlier on Monday, Mr. Nel led Mr. Pistorius through detailed questions about blood spatters on bedding on the floor of his bedroom and about a blue light on the front of a hi-fi amplifier.
During his testimony, Mr. Pistorius said that he heard a window slam, rose from his bed, reached for his handgun and moved down a passage toward a bathroom, shouting to whoever was in his house to leave and telling Ms. Steenkamp to “get down and call the police.”
“I wanted to chase the people out of my house,” he said.
Mr. Pistorius, dressed in a dark suit and sitting in a wooden dock among microphones and case files, paused and sighed when Mr. Nel asked him if he remembered what exactly he had said. “Yes,” he answered. “I started shouting: ‘Get the [expletive] out of my house.' ”
The athlete then slumped and his shoulders heaved as he sobbed.
Mr. Nel opened his questioning on Monday by declaring that the day’s hearings would be devoted to establishing that Mr. Pistorius had produced a “concocted version of events” that was “in fact untrue.” “Your version is so improbable that it cannot possibly be true,” he said.
As the questioning became more pointed, Mr. Pistorius said, “I don’t want to argue with Mr. Nel,” to which the prosecutor retorted, “I want to, Mr. Pistorius.”
The defendant first took the stand on April 7 but his most harrowing testimony has unfolded since Wednesday, when Mr. Nel began to cross-examine him and batter Mr. Pistorius’s version of the events that night.
The athlete, a double amputee since infancy, says he opened fire from outside a locked toilet cubicle in his bathroom, only to discover that the person inside was Ms. Steenkamp.
But the prosecution contends that he committed premeditated murder, an offense that carries a minimum jail term of 25 years. “She was standing there talking to you when you shot her in the head,” Mr. Nel told him on Friday. “She was scared of you. She wasn’t scared of an intruder.”
“You shot at her knowing she was behind that door,” Mr. Nel said.
“I didn’t want to take anyone’s life,” Mr. Pistorius said. “I was never ready to shoot. I was trying to see what was happening in my home.”