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Version 14 Version 15
Pistorius Disputes Murder Charge in Court Pistorius Disputes Murder Charge in Court
(about 5 hours later)
PRETORIA, South Africa — Facing a charge of premeditated murder in the death of his girlfriend, Oscar Pistorius, the double amputee track star and one of the world’s best-known athletes, denied on Tuesday that he had intended to take her life when he opened fire at a closed bathroom door at his home last week, saying he did not know that she was on the other side. PRETORIA, South Africa — Early on Feb. 14, Oscar Pistorius says, he heard a strange noise coming from inside his bathroom, climbed out of bed, grabbed his 9-millimeter pistol, hobbled on his stumps to the door and fired four shots.
“I fail to understand how I could be charged with murder, let alone premeditated,” he said in an affidavit read to the packed courtroom by his defense lawyer, Barry Roux, “I had no intention to kill my girlfriend.” “I fail to understand how I could be charged with murder, let alone premeditated,” Mr. Pistorius said in an affidavit read Tuesday to a packed courtroom by his defense lawyer, Barry Roux. “I had no intention to kill my girlfriend.”
His assertion contradicted an earlier accusation from the prosecutor, Gerrie Nel, that Mr. Pistorius committed premeditated murder when he rose from his bed, pulled on artificial legs, walked more than 20 feet from his bedroom and pumped four bullets into the door, three of which struck his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, on the other side. Prosecutors painted a far different picture, one of a calculated killer, a world-renowned athlete who had the presence of mind and calm to strap on his prosthetic legs, walk 20 feet to the bathroom door and open fire as his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, cowered inside, behind a locked door.
It was the first time that either the prosecution or Mr. Pistorius had publicly provided details of their radically divergent accounts of a killing that has shocked the nation and made news around the world. “The applicant shot and killed an unarmed, innocent women,” Gerrie Nel, the chief prosecutor, said in court on Tuesday. That, Mr. Nel argued, amounted to premeditated murder, a charge that could send Mr. Pistorius to prison for life.
The case broke open last Thursday when the police arrived at Mr. Pistorius’s house in a gated community here in Pretoria to find Ms. Steenkamp dead from gunshot wounds. In court, Mr. Pistorius, a Paralympic track star who competed against able-bodied athletes at the London Olympics despite having lost both his lower legs as an infant, wept uncontrollably as Mr. Roux gave the runner’s account of the fateful early morning. At one point, Magistrate Desmond Nair called a recess to allow Mr. Pistorius, who was sobbing loudly, his face contorted, to regain his composure.
Developments since then have been all the more dramatic, since Mr. Pistorius had been an emblem of triumph over adversity, his sporting achievement on a world stage blending with the glamour of celebrity at home. Mr. Pistorius, 26, and Ms. Steenkamp, 29, a model and law school graduate, had been depicted as a golden couple. “My compassion as a human being does not allow me to just sit here,” Magistrate Nair said.
“We were deeply in love and I could not be happier,” said Mr. Pistorius’s affidavit, read at a bail hearing. “I know she felt the same way.” As it was read out loud, the athlete wept so uncontrollably that the magistrate, Desmond Nair, ordered a brief recess to permit him to regain his composure. As the defense and prosecution laid out their competing versions of the shooting, some details were beyond dispute.
Magistrate Nair adjourned the case until Wednesday without ruling on whether the athlete would be granted bail. Mr. Pistorius and Ms. Steenkamp were alone in the house, having spent the evening there. Around 3 a.m., Mr. Pistorius shot Ms. Steenkamp through the bathroom door, fatally wounding her. He broke down the door and carried her down the stairs, where she died in the foyer of his upscale home in a highly secured compound.
Mr. Pistorius said he and Ms. Steenkamp had gone to bed early on Wednesday night, but in the middle of the night he heard a noise from the bathroom and went to investigate on his stumps, not his artificial legs. The young woman, a model, was cremated Tuesday on the other side of the country in her hometown, Port Elizabeth. Her family and friends mourned her and called for the authorities to deal harshly with Mr. Pistorius.
“I am acutely aware of violent crime being committed by intruders entering homes,” he said in the affidavit. “I have received death threats before. I have also been a victim of violence and of burglaries before. For that reason I kept my firearm, a 9-mm Parabellum, underneath my bed when I went to bed at night.” “There’s a space missing inside all the people that she knew that can’t be filled again,” her brother, Adam Steenkamp, told reporters after the memorial service.
He was nervous, he said, because the bathroom window did not have burglar bars and contractors who had been working there had left ladders behind. In court, Mr. Pistorius is seeking bail on the charge of premeditated murder, but he faces an uphill battle. Magistrate Nair ruled Tuesday that the case would be treated as the most serious kind of offense, which means bail will be granted only if the defense can prove extraordinary circumstances requiring it.
The room was dark, he said, and he did not realize that Ms. Steenkamp was not in bed. He felt vulnerable and fearful without his prosthetics and opened fire at the door, he said, calling to Ms. Steenkamp to telephone the police. The court proceedings, though they concerned only whether Mr. Pistorius would receive bail, offered the first real glimpse into what unfolded at his home on the day of the shooting.
Only then did he realize that she was not in bed, he said. He put on his artificial legs and tried to kick down the door before breaking it open with a cricket bat to discover Ms. Steenkamp. In his affidavit, Mr. Pistorius said that he and Ms. Steenkamp had decided to stay in for the night. He canceled plans with his friends for a night on the town in Johannesburg, while she opted against movies with one of her friends. They had a quiet evening, he said. She did yoga. He watched television. About 10 p.m., they went to sleep.
He carried her downstairs, he said, and “she died in my arms.” In the early morning hours, he said, he woke up to move a fan from the balcony and to close the sliding doors in the bedroom.
Earlier, Magistrate Nair said he could not exclude premeditation in the killing, so Mr. Pistorius’s bail application will be much more difficult. But he said he would consider downgrading the charges depending on evidence at subsequent hearings. “I heard a noise in the bathroom and realized that someone was in the bathroom,” he said. “I felt a sense of terror rushing over me.”
Mr. Nel said Ms. Steenkamp, who had just made her debut in a reality television show, had been in a tiny room measuring less than 20 square feet when the shots rang out. “She could not go anywhere,” he said. “It must have been horrific.” He had already said in the affidavit that he feared South Africa’s rampant violent crime, and later added that he was worried because there were no bars on the window to the bathroom. Construction workers had left ladders in his garden, he said.
“She locked the door for a purpose. We will get to that purpose,” he said. “I believed someone had entered my house,” he said in the affidavit. “I grabbed my 9-millimeter pistol from underneath my bed. On my way to the bathroom I screamed words to the effect for him/them to get out of my house and for Reeva to phone the police. It was pitch dark in the bedroom, and I thought Reeva was in bed.”
But Mr. Roux, a lawyer representing Mr. Pistorius, said the defense would “submit that this is not a murder.” He said there was no evidence that Mr. Pistorius and Ms. Steenkamp had fought and no evidence of a motive. He also challenged the prosecution to produce a witness to corroborate its version of Mr. Pistorius’s actions. Walking on his stumps, he heard the sound of movement inside the toilet, a small room within the bathroom.
“Scratch the veneer” of the prosecution case, he said, and there is no evidence to support it. “It filled me with horror and fear of an intruder,” he said. “I did not have my prosthetic legs on and felt extremely vulnerable. I knew I had to protect Reeva and myself.”
“All we really know is she locked herself behind the toilet door and she was shot,” Mr. Roux said. He fired four shots, then hobbled over to the bedroom, screaming for Reeva to call the police. But when he got back to the bed, she was not there.
Mr. Nel, the prosecutor, however, declared: “If I arm myself, walk a distance and murder a person, that is premeditated. The door is closed. There is no doubt. I walk seven meters and I kill.” “That is when it dawned on me that it could have been Reeva who was in the toilet,” he said.
He added: “The motive is, ‘I want to kill.’ That’s it.” He went back and tried to open the door, he said, but it was locked. He went to the balcony, opened the window and screamed for help. He strapped on his prosthetic legs, ran back to the bathroom and tried to kick in the door. When that did not work, he grabbed a cricket bat.
If convicted of premeditated murder, Mr. Pistorius would face a mandatory life sentence, though under South African law he would be eligible for parole in 25 years at the latest. South Africa abolished the death penalty in 1995. When he finally got it open, Ms. Steenkamp lay slumped on the floor. She was still alive, he said. Mr. Pistorius called the head of security for the estate and called for an ambulance, he said. He carried Ms. Steenkamp’s body to the foyer.
Mr. Pistorius was appearing in court for the second time since Friday. He arrived looking grim-faced, his jaw set. But, as during his earlier appearance, he broke down in tears when the prosecutor said that he had “killed an innocent woman.” “I tried to render the assistance to Reeva that I could, but she died in my arms,” he said. “I am absolutely mortified by the events and the devastating loss of my beloved Reeva.”
As the court went into a midday recess, Ms. Steenkamp’s private funeral service began in the southern coastal city of Port Elizabeth, her hometown, with six pallbearers carrying a coffin swathed in a white cloth and white flowers as mourners expressed dismay and rage. More than 100 relatives and friends attended the funeral at the Victoria Park crematorium. Mr. Pistorius described their relationship, which began in November 2012, as a happy one without strife.
“Why? Why my little girl? Why did this happen? Why did he do this?” June Steenkamp, the victim’s mother, told The Times of Johannesburg. “We were deeply in love, and I could not be happier,” he said. “I know she felt the same way.”
Gavin Venter, a former jockey who worked for the victim’s father, a horse trainer, said on Tuesday: “She was an angel. She was so soft, so innocent. Such a lovely person. It’s just sad that this could happen to somebody so good.” Affidavits from friends of Mr. Pistorius made the same point, describing the pair as a well-matched couple contemplating making a life together.
The killing has stunned a nation that had elevated Mr. Pistorius as an emblem of the ability to overcome acute adversity and a symbol of South Africa’s ability to project its achievements onto the world stage. Mr. Nel, the prosecutor, argued that given the sequence of events, the conclusion that Mr. Pistorius intentionally killed Ms. Steenkamp was unshakable.
Mr. Pistorius was born without fibula bones and both of his legs were amputated below the knee as an infant. But he became a Paralympic champion and the first Paralympic sprinter to compete against able-bodied athletes at the 2012 London Olympics. “Why would a burglar lock himself into a toilet?” Mr. Nel said. “There is no possible explanation to support his report that he thought it was a burglar.”
But several companies have now withdrawn lucrative sponsorships and his case has played into an emotional debate in South Africa about violence against women. The court recessed in the midafternoon and will continue to hear evidence in the bail hearing on Wednesday. The prosecution plans to call the police investigator, who is expected to testify about witness accounts of tensions between Mr. Pistorius and Ms. Steenkamp.
Members of the Women’s League of the ruling African National Congress protested outside the building, waving placards saying “No Bail for Pistorius,” Reuters reported. Questions about the credibility of Mr. Pistorius’s account of the killing are sure to arise. Why did he not notice that Ms. Steenkamp was not in bed? Why did Ms. Steenkamp not respond to his shouting by identifying herself in the bathroom?

Lydia Polgreen reported from Pretoria, and Alan Cowell from London.

With South Africa’s high rates of violent crime, many people here heard Mr. Pistorius’ fears of an intruder sympathetically.
“When things go bump in the night in Johannesburg or Pretoria, it is a scary moment,” said Antony Altbeker, a researcher who has written extensively about violent crime in South Africa. But even if a judge believes Mr. Pistorius, the shooting could still lead to a murder conviction, Mr. Altbeker said.
“If you wake up in the middle of the night and you see someone over your bed and you shoot them, that’s one thing,” Mr. Altbeker said. But “even if he had shot a burglar, he might still be convicted of murder.”

Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London.