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June Steenkamp rejected ‘blood money’
Reeva Steenkamp's mother June rejected a R375,000 payment from her daughter's killer, Oscar Pistorius, as "blood money", the High Court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday.
FILE PICTURE: June Steenkamp, mother of Reeva Steenkamp. Picture: Alon Skuy/Times Media Group/Pool
“She rejects that, she doesn’t want blood money,” prosecutor Gerrie Nel told parole officer and social worker Annette Vergeer during cross-examination.
She earlier presented her report on Pistorius, which the defence had paid her to compile, to the court. In it she recommended that Pistorius get three years of correctional supervision and community service for killing Steenkamp.
Nel told Vergeer that Pistorius got the R375,000 from selling his car. It was paid into the trust account of the Steenkamp’s lawyer.
Nel said he was concerned this was not mentioned in her report.
He asked her when she was told the Steenkamps had rejected the money.
“I can’t confirm 100 percent but I think it was yesterday,” she replied.
Nel also referred to monthly payments Pistorius had been making to the Steenkamps, as mentioned in Vergeer’s report.
“Those moneys will be paid back to the accused in full, every cent,” said Nel.
He wanted to know why this was not mentioned in her report. Vergeer replied the report was compiled during the trial.
On September 12 Judge Thokozile Masipa found Pistorius guilty of the culpable homicide of his girlfriend, model and law graduate Steenkamp, but not guilty of her murder. Pistorius had claimed he thought there was a burglar in his toilet when he fired four shots through the locked door in the early hours of February 14 last year, killing Steenkamp. The State had argued he killed her during an argument.
Masipa also found Pistorius guilty of discharging a firearm in public, when he shot from his friend Darren Fresco’s Glock pistol under a table at Tasha’s restaurant in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, in January 2013.
Pistorius was found not guilty on two firearms-related charges – illegal possession of ammunition, and shooting through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein on September 30, 2012.
– Sapa
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