Oscar could not have stumbled
Murder-accused Oscar Pistorius could not have stumbled on a wooden panel while it was still in the door, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday.
FILE PICTURE: Investigating officer Captain Mike van Aardt gets asked by prosecutor Gerrie Nel to demonstrate the opening and closing of the door through which Reeva Steenkamp was shot and killed at the murder trial of paralympian Oscar Pistorius in Pretoria, Monday, 14 April 2014. Picture: Antoine de Ras/Independent Newspapers Ltd/Pool
“I do not think stumbling would provide sufficient force to end with such a large amount of varnish on the prosthesis,” former police forensic analyst Roger Dixon testified.
He was being questioned by Barry Roux, SC, for Pistorius.
Police officer Colonel Johannes Vermeulen earlier testified for the State that a mark on one of the toilet door panels could have come from Pistorius stepping on it as it lay on the floor of his bathroom.
Pistorius has been charged with murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in his Pretoria house on February 14 last year.
He shot her through a locked toilet door, saying later he mistook her for an intruder about to come out and attack him.
He then kicked at the door with his prosthetic legs and broke it down with a cricket bat.
The court was on Tuesday shown a photo of the toe area of Pistorius’s right prosthetic leg. Dixon pointed out damage on the prosthesis and areas where varnish from the door had been transferred to it.
“That could only come from a hard kick to the door,” Dixon said.
Pistorius is also charged with three contraventions of 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.
Pistorius has also denied guilt on these three charges.
– Sapa
