adminPRETORIA. — Judge Thokozile Masipa will hand down judgment on murder-accused Oscar Pistorius next month, she said last Friday after his defence team concluded its final arguments.
“We shall be back here on the 11th of September at 9.30am,” she said after hearing closing arguments from defence lawyer Barry Roux in the High Court in Pretoria.
The paralympic athlete was charged with murder following the fatal shooting of his girlfriend model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp.
He shot her through a locked toilet door at his Pretoria home on Valentine’s Day last year. He claimed he mistook her for an intruder.
Pistorius’s defence team has submitted that the “Blade Runner” felt vulnerable and anxious as he was not wearing his prosthetic legs at the time.
In the four-month-long trial, his past relationships, social conduct and mental state were placed under scrutiny, with Pistorius also undergoing a 30-day mental observation.
In the final lap of the proceedings this week, the defence and the prosecution delivered final arguments.
“My lady, he knew it was a human being in the toilet. His intention was to kill a human being,” prosecutor Gerrie Nel said, arguing that the defence’s contention that he did not intend killing Steenkamp was invalid.
Nel said that if Pistorius “shot into a cubicle well knowing there is a human being in there, then he is guilty of murder. My lady, if someone shoots to kill then there must be consequences.”
Roux, for Pistorius, said the state’s version that the athlete made up the fact that he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder when he shot her was not true. Roux said Pistorius told the first people who arrived on the scene that he thought it was an intruder.
“He repeated that and went into the bail application before seeing the docket. So on what basis are you saying that he is lying?” Roux said. — Sapa.
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