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| Defense Rests Case in Oscar Pistorius Murder Trial | Defense Rests Case in Oscar Pistorius Murder Trial |
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| LONDON — He has sobbed, retched and wailed. His testimony has been punctuated by cries of grief and met with accusations of mendacity. Before the High Court in Pretoria, the South African capital, Oscar Pistorius has been depicted variously as anguished and remorseful, egotistic, enamored of guns and filled with a rage that propelled him to kill his girlfriend last year. | LONDON — He has sobbed, retched and wailed. His testimony has been punctuated by cries of grief and met with accusations of mendacity. Before the High Court in Pretoria, the South African capital, Oscar Pistorius has been depicted variously as anguished and remorseful, egotistic, enamored of guns and filled with a rage that propelled him to kill his girlfriend last year. |
| But on Tuesday, his stop-start murder trial — televised around the world and one of the most sensational since the O. J. Simpson trial — took a decisive step closer to the moment when Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa will offer her judgment on which portrayal of Mr. Pistorius, a double-amputee track star, she believes is real. | But on Tuesday, his stop-start murder trial — televised around the world and one of the most sensational since the O. J. Simpson trial — took a decisive step closer to the moment when Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa will offer her judgment on which portrayal of Mr. Pistorius, a double-amputee track star, she believes is real. |
| On the 39th day of the trial, which opened in March, defense lawyers rested their case. Both sides will return to court on Aug. 7 and 8 to make their final oral arguments. A verdict could be in before the end of August, according to reporters in the courtroom who have posted every minute detail of the case on Twitter. | On the 39th day of the trial, which opened in March, defense lawyers rested their case. Both sides will return to court on Aug. 7 and 8 to make their final oral arguments. A verdict could be in before the end of August, according to reporters in the courtroom who have posted every minute detail of the case on Twitter. |
| But even as the trial nudged toward its closing stages after testimony from almost 40 witnesses, Mr. Pistorius, 27, was again depicted as a man of contradictions, torn between supreme achievement on the track and a profound sense of private vulnerability away from it. | But even as the trial nudged toward its closing stages after testimony from almost 40 witnesses, Mr. Pistorius, 27, was again depicted as a man of contradictions, torn between supreme achievement on the track and a profound sense of private vulnerability away from it. |
| “Although he loathes to be pitied in any way,” Wayne Derman, a leading South African sports physician, said of Mr. Pistorius, “the hard truth is that he does not have lower legs.” Dr. Derman, who worked with the runner for several years, including at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, said, “You’ve got a paradox — of an individual who is supremely able and an individual who is significantly disabled.” | “Although he loathes to be pitied in any way,” Wayne Derman, a leading South African sports physician, said of Mr. Pistorius, “the hard truth is that he does not have lower legs.” Dr. Derman, who worked with the runner for several years, including at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, said, “You’ve got a paradox — of an individual who is supremely able and an individual who is significantly disabled.” |
| The defense argues that Mr. Pistorius’s condition left him hyperalert to any perceived threat — a factor, his lawyers argue, in his behavior in the early hours of Feb. 14, 2013, when he has admitted fatally shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, 29, through a locked bathroom door. The prosecution says he killed her in a jealous rage, but Mr. Pistorius says he shot her by mistake in the belief that an intruder had entered his Pretoria home. | |
| “This is the night I lost the person I most cared about,” he said, sobbing, in one exchange when he took the stand for five days of grueling cross-examination in April. “I don’t know how people don’t understand that.” | “This is the night I lost the person I most cared about,” he said, sobbing, in one exchange when he took the stand for five days of grueling cross-examination in April. “I don’t know how people don’t understand that.” |
| But the lead prosecutor, Gerrie Nel, known as the Pit Bull for his pugnacious manner, was not moved by such protestations. He called Mr. Pistorius a liar, saying at one point that his version of events was “so improbable that it cannot possibly be true.” At another moment in cross-examination, Mr. Nel accused Mr. Pistorius of manufacturing his distress. | |
| As the defense began closing its case, Mr. Nel returned to the attack, assailing the credibility of Dr. Derman’s testimony and telling him: “You are not objective in your evidence before court. You do not want to give an answer that will not benefit the accused.” | As the defense began closing its case, Mr. Nel returned to the attack, assailing the credibility of Dr. Derman’s testimony and telling him: “You are not objective in your evidence before court. You do not want to give an answer that will not benefit the accused.” |
| Dr. Derman responded, “I do not believe that I am biased.” | Dr. Derman responded, “I do not believe that I am biased.” |
| The final days of the defense case were overshadowed on some social media sites by leaked images, shown on Australian television, of Mr. Pistorius re-enacting his movements between his bedroom and a locked toilet cubicle on the night of the killing. The defense says the video was filmed as part of preparations for its case, was never meant to be broadcast and was obtained illegally — a charge the Australian broadcaster denied. | The final days of the defense case were overshadowed on some social media sites by leaked images, shown on Australian television, of Mr. Pistorius re-enacting his movements between his bedroom and a locked toilet cubicle on the night of the killing. The defense says the video was filmed as part of preparations for its case, was never meant to be broadcast and was obtained illegally — a charge the Australian broadcaster denied. |
| The video shows him walking uncertainly on the stumps below his knee where both of his legs were amputated at the age of 11 months because he was born without fibula bones. The image, posted on YouTube, was in marked contrast to the triumphant photographs of Mr. Pistorius on the scythelike running prosthetics that inspired his nickname, Blade Runner, when he competed in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. | |