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Dentist on murder rap after Austrian dies in ‘rehab’
Judge Masipa rejects ‘reflex’ argument
Judge Thokozile Masipa rejected on Thursday paralympian Oscar Pistorius's argument that he acted involuntarily when he fired the shots that killed Reeva Steenkamp.
Judge Thokozile Masipa delivers her judgement in the Oscar Pistorius murder trial at the High Court in Pretoria on Thursday, 11 September 2014. Picture: Phill Magakoe/Independent Newspapers/ Pool
“I disagree with that submission,” Masipa read from her judgment in the High Court in Pretoria.
She earlier said: “The accused clearly wanted to use the firearm.”
She was responding to submissions by sports and exercise medicine professor at the University of Cape Town, Prof Wayne Derman.
LIVE VIDEO FEED: Oscar Pistorius Judgment
Derman, who testified for the defence, said “the accused lacked criminal capacity at the time he fired the shots because of an involuntary, reflexive response”.
Masipa said this argument, that he had no control when he fired, “cannot be”.
This was because of the clear sequence of actions Pistorius took from the time he heard his bathroom window slide open, leading him to think an intruder was entering his house, to when he fired.
Pistorius is accused of murdering Steenkamp in his Pretoria townhouse on Valentine’s Day 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.
The paralympian also faces three charges of contravening the Firearms Control Act – one of illegal possession of ammunition and two of discharging a firearm in public. He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013. On September 30, 2012 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.
– Sapa
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