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murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, who died in a shooting in his Pretoria home on Valentine’s Day last week.
He has denied deliberately shooting her and said he thought there was a burglar in the house when he fired shots at the bathroom door, killing her.
He would not return to his home at Silver Woods estate in Pretoria, where the shooting occurred. Pistorius was told not leave the country and was expected to hand over his travel documents to the investigating officer.
The Pretoria Magistrate’s Court agreed he could pay R100 000 first and the rest of the bail amount by March 1.
The state had failed to prove that Pistorius was a flight risk, magistrate Desmond Nair said in his ruling.
“I cannot find that it has been established that the accused is a flight risk,” he said.
Nair also said there was no evidence before him that Pistorius would interfere with state witnesses, and that a Warrant Officer Hilton Botha — the investigating officer who was this week removed from the case — had not shown that Pistorius had a propensity to commit violence.
Mr Pistorius sat in court with his jaw clenched and crying at times as Nair provided a detailed, two-hour summary of the evidence and affidavits presented to him by the state and the defence over the past four days.
“He is mortified at the loss of Steenkamp as well as the pain and suffering of her family,” Nair said, adding that Pistorius stood by his version of events and believed a trial would show he did not mean to murder Steenkamp.
However, Nair said: “I have difficulty in appreciating why the accused did not ascertain the whereabouts of his girlfriend when he got out of the bed.” Other “problems” the magistrate had with Pistorius’ version of how Steenkamp was shot through the bathroom included why he had not first checked who was in the toilet, and why he would have further ventured into danger in the toilet.
“To my mind, what if he came out and the intruder was waiting for him?” asked Nair.
The magistrate read out summaries of evidence from Pistorius’s friends to say how much in love he and Steenkamp had been. Nair also said he had ordered that Pistorius be kept in a police cell instead of prison during his bail application to avoid delays in his consultations with his counsel.
“I do, however, wish to stress that I am not creating any precedent,” he said.
The evidence presented in court this week was based on an initial report of the crime scene, and the point of the application was to determine whether Pistorius — who did not testify — should be granted bail.
Yesterday morning, Nair heard submissions from the state and Pistorius’s defence. The Paralympic and Olympic athlete’s lawyer, Barry Roux, said his client’s actions after the shooting of Steenkamp had been “probable”.
Explaining the “frantic moment” when Pistorius realised Steenkamp was not in bed after she was shot in the bathroom, Adv Roux said it was “probable” that he ran downstairs to unlock the front door to let help in, after he had phoned the residential estate manager.
“These are the facts. There is nothing improbable about that,” he said.
Adv Roux also said Pistorius’s alleged intention to kill a burglar could not be turned into an intention to kill his girlfriend. “The question here is, how would a reasonable person have acted under the circumstances?”
Referring to the state’s submission that Pistorius was a flight risk, Adv Roux said: “It’s difficult for this man to disappear from this Earth. It would be difficult for him to go through airport security . . . His legs need adjustment every month.”
Adv Roux said every time his client went through airport security, there was a commotion and “security bells go off”.
He added: “It’s far more difficult for a person in the position of the applicant with his known difficulties because he is easier to be identified.”
Prosecutor Gerrie Nel turned down an offer to address the court again, saying he could go on “forever” in his argument opposing bail.
Earlier in the day, Adv Nel said Pistorius’s disability did not make him different from anyone else accused of a crime. — bdlive.co.za
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