“I heard her breathing” – Pistorius
After Oscar Pistorius broke into the toilet door in which Reeva Steenkamp had been shot, he heard her breathing, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday.
Paralympian Oscar Pistorius weeps while listening to text messages given in evidence by cellphone analyst Francois Moller during his murder trial at the high court in Pretoria, Monday, 24 March 2014. Pistorius is standing trial for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp whom he shot through a bathroom door on Valentine’s Day last year. He claims that he mistook her for an intruder. Picture: Chris Collingridge/TheStar/Pool
“I pulled her around onto me and then I heard her breathing, and then I tried to get her up,” Pistorius said during cross examination by prosecutor Gerrie Nel.
Pistorius 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.
Nel asked him about the position of the magazine rack in the cubicle after he broke into the toilet to get to Steenkamp. Pistorius claimed he heard the rack moving before he fired the shots. Ballistics expert Captain Chris Mangena previously testified for the State that Steenkamp fell onto the rack after she was shot in the hip.
“I scuffled (sic) around with my legs which is probably where I kicked the magazine rack,” Pistorius said.
Nel asked him if his kicking of the rack was a memory, or if he thought it happened.
“It’s what I think,” he replied.
Pistorius is also is also charged with three contraventions of the Firearms Control Act.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
– Sapa
