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Pretoria — A difference in statements by two witnesses present when murder accused Oscar Pistorius fired through a car’s open sunroof was queried in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria yesterday.
Pistorius’s friend Darren Fresco said the Paralympian fired the shot “out of the blue”.
He, Pistorius, and the athlete’s then girlfriend Samantha Taylor were in the car at the time, on September 30, 2012.
Fresco was being questioned by Advocate Barry Roux for Pistorius.
Roux read a statement from Taylor which differed from Fresco’s version.
“The shot was fired because they (Fresco and Pistorius) were angry at the police and they found it funny to irritate the police,” Roux read from Taylor’s statement.
According to Taylor they had, shortly before, been pulled over for speeding. Fresco said Pistorius fired the shot a long time after metro police stopped them.
Asked to explain the discrepancy, Fresco stuck to his version.
“My testimony is the truth, My Lady, that’s what I remember,” Fresco said.
Fresco risks prosecution on ammunition and firearms-related charged.
Judge Thokozile Masipa, however, told him if he answered questions put to him by the defence or prosecution frankly and honestly, he would be discharged from prosecution.
Pistorius is accused of the murder of model and law graduate Steenkamp on February 14 last year.
He is also charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, and two counts of discharging a firearm in public.
Meanwhile, it was up to the court to make a conclusion on academic literature which may raise a question mark over Steenkamp’s last meal, a pathologist told the High Court in Pretoria yesterday.
This was after questions by Roux, who cited studies showing variations in findings on gastric emptying, due to the type of meal, and the person.
One Monday, pathologist Gert Saayman estimated that Steenkamp last ate a meal of mostly vegetable matter, with some cheese-like protein, about two hours before her death.
The court has heard witnesses testify they heard screaming coming from his house after 03:00 on February 14, 2013.
During his bail application last year, Pistorius said he and Steenkamp were in his bedroom at his home in Silver Woods, Pretoria, around 22:00 where she was doing yoga. After that they went to bed.
She was later shot dead through the door of a toilet cubicle in his bathroom.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder, saying he thought there was an intruder in the house. — APSapa.
derick.khumalo