‘Hands off my president!’: Mama Joy ‘asking court to drop charges’ against Danny Jordaan
Paralympian Oscar Pistorius listens to judgment being handed down in his murder trial at the High Court in Pretoria on Thursday, 11 September 2014. Picture: Phill Magakoe/Independent Newspapers/ Pool
“The accused pleaded not guilty to count one… He pleaded not guilty to counts two, three and four,” she said reading her judgment.
She said the 27-year-old athlete described the death his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp as a “tragic one which occurred after he had mistakenly believed an intruder or intruders entered his home” to harm him and Steenkamp.
She read a short piece from Pistorius’s testimony, where he described the moments leading up to the shooting.
Masipa read how Pistorius heard the bathroom window sliding open and how he armed himself.
LIVE VIDEO FEED: Oscar Pistorius Judgment
“[Pistorius said] he was on stumps so unable to run away or defend himself,” she read.
She said Steenkamp’s body sustained no further injuries after the shooting.
“The State’s case was that the accused and the deceased had an argument and the accused had intentionally shot the deceased who had locked herself in the toilet,” she read.
Masipa went over the evidence of some of the neighbours.
During the trial Pistorius said he thought an intruder was behind the door of the toilet in his Pretoria home when he shot through it. He fired four times, killing Steenkamp on February 14, 2013.
The State says the murder was premeditated.
When the trial started on March 3, Pistorius pleaded not guilty to the murder charge, and to three firearm-related charges.
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.
– Sapa
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