adminundermined the reliability of the claims as the South African sporting hero sought bail for the Valentine’s Day killing that he insists was a horrible accident and not intentional, as prosecutors aim to prove.
Police also said Pistorius had previously been arrested at his Pretoria home for assault, although he was not charged, and faced further charges of possessing an unlicensed gun.
A woman who lives in the same highly secured Pretoria complex as Pistorius “heard talking that sounded like non-stop fighting from two to three in the morning”, hours before she was killed, Prosecutor Gerrie Nel said.
Another witness reported hearing gunshots, screams and then more shots, police said.
“We have the statement of a person who said after he heard gunshots, he went to his balcony and saw the light was on. Then he heard a female screaming two-three times, then more gunshots,” Detective Hilton Botha said.
But Pistorius’ legal team disputed these accounts as police said the witnesses were 300 metres from the house.
And the prosecution, which wants to prove that the paralympian had deliberately planned to kill Steenkamp, was forced to admit that Pistorius’s claim that he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder matched the crime scene.
Pistorius (26) said he kept a firearm under his bed at night because he had been a victim of violence and burglaries before and had received death threats. But the state prosecutor said the athlete would face an additional charge of possessing unlicensed .38 special calibre ammunition.
A police search of his home also found testosterone and needles in a dresser in his bedroom, Botha said, amid speculation that performance-enhancing drugs may have influenced his mental state.
But his defence lawyer, Barry Roux, said the sex hormone was an acceptable supplement. “It’s a herbal remedy and he can use it and he has used it before,” he said.
The International Paralympic Committee announced that he was drug-tested before and during last year’s Paralympic Games in London and on both occasions the results were negative.
Magistrate Desmond Nair said he could not rule out that there was some planning involved in the killing. — AFP.
Online Reporter