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“Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorius asked a friend to take the blame for him accidentally discharging a pistol under the table of a posh Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013, a month before he killed his girlfriend, his murder trial heard yesterday.Testifying for the prosecution against the South African Olympic and Paralympic track star, professional boxer Kevin Lerena described how he, Pistorius and two others had been having dinner at Tashas restaurant when the gun went off.
Lerena said one of the group, Darren Fresco, passed his pistol under the table to Pistorius, telling him there was “one up” — an indication that a round was loaded in the chamber.
“A shot went off. Then there was just compelete silence,” Lerena said. “I looked down at the floor and exactly where I looked down, where my foot was, there was a hole in the floor.”
“I had a little graze on my toe, but I wasn’t hurt,” Lerena added.
Pistorius immediately apologised to his fellow diners and checked they had not been hurt, but then turned to Fresco and asked him to take responsibility, Lerena said, testifying on the third day of Pistorius’ murder trial in Pretoria.
“‘Please take the blame for me — there’s too much media hype around me’,” Lerena quoted Pistorius as saying. “When the restaurant owners came up, Darren took the blame.”
Lerena, who goes by the ring name of “KO Kid”, was giving evidence in relation to a lesser charge brought against Pistorius of discharging a weapon in a public place.
The main charge is that he murdered his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentine’s Day 2013 by shooting her through a locked toilet door. Pistorius has pleaded not guilty, saying it was a tragic error and he mistook her for an intruder.
The prosecution has sought to portray the 27-year-old running star, who had his disabled lower legs amputated as a baby and uses carbon fiber prosthetic “blades” to run, as a gun-obsessed hot-head.
Pistorius has also pleaded not guilty to the Tashas gun offence charge, and to a similar charge of putting a bullet through the sun roof of a former girlfriend’s car in a separate incident.
Meanwhile, Pistorius’ lawyer yesterday tried to inject doubt into a State witness’ statement that he heard gunshots, telling him “a man’s life is at stake”.
Charl Johnson had told the North Gauteng High Court that he heard gunshots from a Pretoria townhouse 177m (177 m = 194 yd) from his own in the early hours of 14 February.
“I understand your believing that the noises you heard were gunshots,” Barry Roux, for Pistorius, said to Johnson.
Once he had subsequently learnt that the sounds had come from Pistorius’ home, and that he shot dead Steenkamp, it would “cement your belief”, Roux said.
“But there are problems with your belief . . . a man’s life is at stake.”
Roux had been suggesting that the shots Johnson said he heard were in fact Pistorius breaking down the door of his toilet with a cricket bat after Steenkamp, who was behind it, was shot.
Roux accused Johnson of tailoring his testimony to fit that of his wife, Michelle Burger, and prejudice the athlete accused of murdering his girlfriend.
Johnson has told the court that the couple were woken by a woman’s anguished screams on the night Steenkamp died.
Roux charged that the soft-spoken IT expert had failed to give the court an independent version of what he heard in the early hours of Valentine’s Day last year.
“You have not favoured the court with a strong, independent version,” Roux told Johnson. “What worries me . . . this court really is entitled . . . that witnesses come to court not contaminated. Maybe you and your wife should have stood together in the witness box.”
Judge Thokozile Masipa intervened and asked Roux: “Aren’t you going a bit far?”
Roux conceded and dropped that line of questioning.
But he has consistently tried to cast doubt on the credibility of the couple. The witnesses have all requested that their faces not be photographed or shown on television.
But yesterday, Johnson revealed that he had received a number of distressing messages after his cellphone number was read out in court on Tuesday.
One message inquired why he was lying about what happened on the night that Pistorius shot Steenkamp.
Around two hours after hearing the screams and shots, began taking measurements around his home in preparation for a security upgrade.
He said while they did not have the details of what had happened, they had thought that a robbery had occurred at Pistorius’ home and that Pistorius had perhaps been shot.
Johnson said he had not at first discussed the security plans with his wife. “I’m the man of the house so I took my own initiative,” he said.
Delivering her evidence-in-chief on Monday and Tuesday, Burger said they had always believed they lived in a secure area.
They live at the Silver Stream Estate, which is next to Silver Woods Country Estate, the complex where Pistorius shot and killed Steenkamp. — Sapa
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