Nel ends questions to photographer – Oscar Trial
Prosecutor Gerrie Nel concluded questioning a police photographer in the High Court in Pretoria on Monday about photos he took of the scene of Reeva Steenkamp's killing.
FILE PICTURE: State prosecutor Gerrie Nel (R) makes a point during the trial of Olympic and Paralympic track star Oscar Pistorius at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, Monday, 17 March 2014. Pistorius is on trial for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his suburban Pretoria home on Valentine’s Day last year. He says he mistook her for an intruder. Picture: Siphiwe Sibeko/Pool
Nel asked Warrant Officer Barend van Staden about the length of the right side of the wall leading into the bathroom in paralympian Oscar Pistorius’s home. Van Staden said it was 1.31m.
Pistorius is accused of the premeditated murder of his girlfriend Steenkamp on February 14 last year. He shot and killed her through the closed door of his toilet, apparently believing she was an intruder.
Van Staden told the court he found Pistorius’s brother Carl in the garage with the athlete when he arrived to take photos of him.
Later, Van Staden accompanied Pistorius’s sister Aimee and a friend upstairs, for them to fetch clothes from the cupboard in the passage outside the bedroom.
Van Staden has testified that he made a total of 15 photo albums relating to the crime, including of Steenkamp’s post mortem, the blood spatters throughout the house, and of the alarm system and the contents of a small safe in Pistorius’s cupboard.
After Nel said he had no further questions, Barry Roux, for Pistorius, rose to begin cross-examining Van Staden.
Van Staden is attached to the photography section of the Local Criminal Record Centre. He had been with the centre for 12 years, and in the police for 21.
In addition to the murder of Steenkamp, Pistorius is charged with contravening the Firearms Control Act.
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
