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Day 7: Inside the Oscar Pistorius trial

A wrap of all the court proceedings on one page

 

 

Pistorius drove at 'over 200km/h', court told

Oscar Pistorius drove at over 200km/h on a trip to the Vaal two years ago, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Wednesday.

As Pistorius drove, his friend Darren Fresco took a picture of the speedometer with his cellphone, Fresco said to questioning by prosecutor Gerrie Nel.

"How fast were you going?" Nel asked.

Fresco, an IT network engineer with collar-length hair, paused for several seconds.

"Over 200," he said, without looking at Pistorius, who was passing notes to his legal team.

Fresco, Pistorius and the athlete's then girlfriend Samantha Taylor drove to the Vaal in September 2012 to spend a day with friends. On the way back Fresco drove, also speeding, at one point going 260km/h.

Nel asked Fresco if Pistorius asked him to slow down or complained about the speed he was going.

"No, he did not," said Fresco.

During the trip Pistorius sat with his gun between his legs. It was not in a holster, Fresco said.

Pistorius is accused of the murder of model and law graduate Reeva 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.

He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at Tasha's in January 2013.

On September 30, 2012 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

Mock-up toilet set up for Oscar trial

A mock-up toilet cubicle was set up in the High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday, on the eighth day of Oscar Pistorius's murder trial.

The white square cubicle with a waist-high wall has a brown wooden door that looks like it has been repaired.

Speculation was that it could be the door through which Pistorius fired the shots that killed Reeva Steenkamp.

The cubicle was set up on the side of the court where the witness stand is. Two rectangular white stickers were visible on the door, one near the top and the other above the door handle.

Barry Roux, for Pistorius, and the paralympian stood behind the construction with their arms folded, talking before proceedings started.

Pistorius covered his mouth as he spoke. The accused, dressed in a black suit, had entered the court building without his usual entourage to escort him in.

He stood in the dock chatting to his lawyer Kenny Oldwage. Pistorius family members, including his uncle Arnold Pistorius, started arriving after 9.10am.

Oldwage and Roux then huddled in front of the door, talking and then called other members of their legal team over.

The cross-examination of State witness Darren Fresco,who was with Pistorius when two shots went off -- one in September 2012 and another January 2013 -- was expected to resume on Wednesday.

ON THE SIDE - Swazis visit Oscar trial to resolve land dispute

A group of Swazi nationals gathered outside the High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday morning hoping to get legal advice from one of the lawyers working on Oscar Pistorius's murder case.

They were hoping to resolve a land dispute case involving their chief, prince MC Dlamini, who is a relative of Swaziland's King Mswati, and another man, said an induna who was part of the group and did not want to be named.

"This man is living on the prince's land and they want him to go," said the induna.

The induna did not know the name of the lawyer they wanted to see, but he said it was not Barry Roux, Pistorius's lawyer.

"They have been sent by the prince to come and listen how do they talk this case," the man said.

The group consisted of about 30 people, from Carolina in Mpumalanga, and mainly women. They had orange and white wraps with black and white images of Mswati printed on them draped over their shoulders, carried knobkerries and sang.

"They are asking who is fighting for the land," the man said when asked what they were singing about.

When asked why there were more women there, he laughed and said: "Because they are braver then men and when they want a thing they get it."

Pistorius's trial enters its eighth day on Wednesday.

Day eight of Pistorius case

Oscar Pistorius will be back in the High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday following testimony by his friend on day seven of the trial.

Darren Fresco testified that the "Blade Runner" was passionate about guns and had recklessly fired a shot from a car, and another inside a packed restaurant.

Fresco said he swore at Pistorius in shock when the paralympian fired a shot through the open sun roof of the car they were travelling in on an outing to the Vaal River.

"I apologise My Lady, but I asked him if he was fucking mad," Fresco, who was driving, told the Court when State prosecutor Gerrie Nel asked how he reacted.

In response Pistorius "just laughed" he said.

According to Fresco, Pistorius was furious at the time because a policeman, who had stopped them for speeding, had picked up his pistol after seeing it lying on the seat.

Pistorius told the policeman "you can't just touch another man's gun," he said.

Fresco also testified that, at Pistorius's urging, he had lied for him and taken the blame when after the paralympian sprinter took his firearm and accidentally set it off in Tashas restaurant in Johannesburg in January last year.

Pistorius is facing a charge of premeditated murder over the shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day last year.

He has pleaded not guilty.

The State has also charged him with firearm offences and suggested that the restaurant incident showed the accused to be a man reluctant to take responsibility for his actions.

Wrap up of session 3 of court proceedings from 'Day 7 of Oscar trial - Tymon Smith

An increasingly irritated and defensive Darren Fresco admitted under cross examination by Oscar Pistorius’s defence counsel, Advocate Barry Roux SC, that he had followed previous testimony from the Blade Runner’s murder trial through the media and on Twitter.

Roux probed Fresco about a shooting incident that took place at Tasha’s restaurant in Johannesburg in 2012.

When asked by Roux if he was certain he had been close enough to Pistorius at the busy eatery for the athlete to hear Fresco tell him that the gun was "one up" (that there was a bullet in the chamber) Fresco first estimated they had been about 30cm away from each other across the table but later changed this to 60cm.

Often saying that he was unable to remember details put to him by Roux, Fresco became defensive on the stand and squirmed uncomfortably in his chair as Roux poked holes into his testimony.

Roux attempted to do so by using discrepancies between Fresco’s statement and his evidence to insinuate that he might have tailored his evidence in line with what he'd heard during the bail hearing and in subsequent media reports on the case.

Fresco will finish his cross examination on Wednesday morning.

Oscar: Discrepancy in statements queried

A difference in statements by two witnesses present when murder-accused Oscar Pistorius fired through a car's open sunroof was queried in the High Court in Pretoria on Tuesday.

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 Barry Roux, SC, 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.

Oscar loved guns: Friend

A friend of "Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius on Tuesday testified in his murder trial that the athlete had "a big love for firearms" and had twice in his presence set off a handgun in public.

Darren Fresco corroborated earlier testimony that a seething Pistorius had fired a shot through the sunroof of a car in 2012 after they were stopped for speeding.

One of the policeman who pulled them over, saw Pistorius's firearm lying on the car seat and picked it up. Fresco testified that it enraged Pistorius, who is on trial for shooting dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

"The accused replied 'you can't just touch another man's gun'," Fresco told the High Court in Pretoria.

After they drove off, Fresco was startled by a gunshot and realised that Pistorius had fired out of the sunroof of the car.

"I apologise My Lady, but I asked him if he was fucking mad," Fresco told the court when State prosecutor Gerrie Nel asked how he reacted.

Asked how Pistorius responded, he said: "He just laughed, My Lady."

Under further questioning from Nel, Fresco confirmed that Pistorius had asked him to pass him his Glock pistol while they were having lunch at Tasha's restaurant in Johannesburg in January last year.

He said he trusted Pistorius "to be competent... because he had a big love for firearms" and passed it to him under the table, with the warning that there was a bullet in the chamber.

Fresco said he saw Pistorius move his shoulder, and assumed that he was securing the firearm, but the next moment a shot rang out, silencing the busy restaurant.

As professional boxer Kevin Lerena testified last week, Fresco said Pistorius promptly asked him to take the blame for the incident because he did not want to attract media attention.

He quoted the Olympic sprinter as asking: "There is too much media hype around me at the moment, please can you take the rap for it?

"Being a friend, I said I would," he told the court.

Pistorius's lawyer, Barry Roux, put it to Fresco during cross-examination that his recollection of the conversations with the restaurant owners in which he took responsibility for the shot, were partially at odds with theirs.

He also asked Fresco, who conceded that he consulted lawyers before he made his statement, why his written testimony was silent on Pistorius asking him to take the blame for the restaurant incident.

"I can't give you a reason for that," Fresco responded.

Earlier on Tuesday the seasoned advocate had grilled pathologist Gert Saayman, who performed the post mortem on Steenkamp, about his testimony that she appeared to have last eaten some two hours before she died.

As Steenkamp died after 3am on Valentine's Day last year, this testimony appeared to contradict Pistorius's submission that the couple went to sleep around ten.

Roux at one point asked for an adjournment to consult scientific literature about gastric emptying, but Saayman expressed confidence that his findings were accurate.

He had, he pointed out earlier, performed or supervised between 10,000 and 15,000 medico-legal post mortem exams during his 30-year career.

Saayman also testified that Steenkamp had about a teaspoon of murky urine in her bladder. He told the court that her bladder would have been empty had she gone to the toilet between 30 minutes to an hour before her death.

Steenkamp was shot dead in a locked toilet cubicle in Pistorius's luxury townhouse in Pretoria. He admits killing her but contends he believed he was shooting at an intruder hiding in the toilet, when he fired four shots into the door.

He last week pleaded not guilty to premeditated murder.

Neighbours of the disabled sprinter have testified that on the night of the shooting they heard a woman's screams ring out from the direction of his house.

On Monday, as Saayman gave graphic testimony about Steenkamp's injuries and pointed out that she was shot with bullets designed to expand on impact and cause maximum damage, Pistorius became violently ill in court.

Fresco pulled over for driving at 260kph

Darren Fresco was pulled over and fined for speeding at 260kph the night his friend Oscar Pistorius allegedly fired a shot out of a car's sunroof, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday.

When Fresco said he could not remember the exact speed, Pistorius's defence lawyer Barry Roux quipped that he would have remembered travelling at such a speed.

Fresco said he, Pistorius and Pistorius's then-girlfriend Samantha Taylor were stopped twice by traffic police on their way home from a day at the Vaal River.

The first time was for not having a number plate on his car and the second was for speeding, near the Grasmere toll plaza.

Fresco said under cross-examination by Roux that he crumpled up the fines and threw them into the footwell.

Roux had been cross-examining him on earlier testimony that he had given the fines to a motor dealership to deal with, even though the fine was in his name and it was not their responsibility.

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.

He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013 and asked Fresco to take the blame, according to testimony.

In September, 30 2012 Pistorius allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

Taylor testified last week that he fired the shot though the sunroof out of irritation at the traffic police, who had also given him a warning about leaving his firearm on the car seat.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Oscar would have heard bullet warning

Oscar Pistorius would have heard a friend warn him there was a bullet in the chamber of a gun he handed to the athlete, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday.

"The acoustics in that restaurant are terrible, particularly at lunchtime, but because of the proximity of our heads it is impossible that he could not have heard me say the gun was 'one up'," Darren Fresco said to questioning from Barry Roux, SC, for Pistorius.

"One up" means there is a bullet in the chamber.

Fresco was testifying about a shot that went off from his Glock pistol after he passed it under a table to Pistorius at Tasha's restaurant in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, in January 2013.

Boxer Kevin Lerena and a British sprinter were with Pistorius and Fresco at the time.

The gun fired and a bullet went into the tiled floor under the table.

Fresco and Pistorius were sitting diagonally across from one another and leaned towards each other as the gun was passed.

Court was adjourned for 10 minutes due to a problem with the recording equipment.

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.

He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013.

In September, 2010 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

'Oscar asked for my gun', court hears

Oscar Pistorius asked for a friend's gun at a restaurant shortly before the firearm went off, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday.

"The accused asked me to pass my firearm to him," Darren Fresco said to questions from prosecutor Gerrie Nel.

Pistorius took the Glock pistol from Fresco under a table, at Tasha's restaurant in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, in January 2013.

When Nel asked Fresco why Pistorius asked for his gun, Fresco said he did not know.

"I thought he was competent. We had been to the shooting range before and I know he had a big love for guns," said Fresco.

He said there was a bullet in the chamber and he saw Pistorius make a "shoulder gesture", which he assumed was Pistorius sighting the existing bullet out of the chamber.

Fresco said the gun had no "specific safety clip".

The gun fired and a bullet went into the tiled floor under the table.

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.

He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013.

In September 2010, he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

Pistorius fired gun from sunroof: Fresco - Sapa

Darren Fresco's ears felt as if they were bleeding after his friend Oscar Pistorius fired a shot through the sunroof of a car, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday.

"I apologise My Lady, but I asked him if he was fucking mad," Fresco told the court when asked how he reacted after Pistorius fired the shot.

He testified he was driving with Pistorius's ex-girlfriend Samantha Taylor and Pistorius in the car.

A court visual showed they were on the R25 and M78 Edenglen turnoff in the direction of Johannesburg.

Earlier that evening, they were stopped for speeding and Pistorius had become angry about a metro policeman touching his firearm.

Fresco said they were driving with Taylor in the back of the car.

"And then without prior warning he shot out the sunroof," he said.

He instinctively moved to right hand side of the vehicle because of the noise in his left ear.

That led to Fresco voicing the profanity.

Asked by prosecutor Gerrie Nel how Pistorius responded, he said: "He just laughed My Lady."

They then "just carried on driving".

Pistorius is charged with the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on February 14 2013.

He is also charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, and two counts of discharging a firearm in public.

He has pleaded not guilty.

Summary of trial proceedings from second session of Day 7 thus far - Tymon Smith

The second session of day seven of Paralympian Oscar Pistorius’s murder trial pitted his defence attorney, Advocate Barry Roux's constant refrain of "but that cannot be" against the “I can’t remember” of Darren Fresco, a friend of Pistorius.

Fresco has accepted immunity from prosecution for his involvement in the two gun-related charges in which Pistorius is also implicated in, in exchange for full and honest testimony. The immunity is allowed under section 204 of the Criminal Procedure Act.

He testified about the incident at Tasha's restaurant, in Melrose Arch in Johannesburg and another incident in which Pistorius is alleged to have a shot a bullet through the sunroof of a car they were traveling in together with the athlete’s then-girlfriend Samantha Taylor.

Fresco maintained that he had passed the gun under the table to Pistorius at Tasha's and that the two friends had been close enough for Pistorius to hear him say that the gun was "one up," meaning that there was a bullet in the chamber.

When the gun went off Pistorius asked Fresco to "take the rap," because of the heavy media attention around him. Fresco then told the owners that he had been responsible.

On the day of the second incident, Fresco recalled that he, Pistorius and Taylor had been stopped twice on their way home from the Vaal: once for not displaying a number plate and the second time for speeding.

On the second occasion Pistorius, apparently furious that a Johannesburg Metro Police officer had picked up his firearm, told the man, "You can't just touch another man's gun."

Fresco also said that when Pistorius fired through the sunroof he had given no warning and the noise of the shot had caused his ears to ring.

When asked by state prosecutor Gerrie Nel what he said to Pistorius after the shot went off, Fresco replied, "apologies for my language, My Lady, but I asked him if he was fucking mad."

Under cross examination Fresco was asked by Roux if he remembered that he had been driving at a speed of 260km/ph at the time he was pulled over, but Fresco said he could not remember.

He could also not remember much after the three friends had gone to the Gourmet Garage in Atholl Square later that evening. He did however remember that while driving to the restaurant after the shot was fired, "there was a beautiful sunset."

'Don't touch my gun': Oscar - Sapa

Paralympian Oscar Pistorius told a metro police officer not to touch his firearm, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday.

Witness Darren Fresco told the court how he, Pistorius, and the athlete's then girlfriend Samantha Taylor were pulled over for speeding in September 2010. They were driving from the Vaal to Johannesburg at the time.

Fresco, who had been driving, was speaking to a metro police officer when Pistorius got out to find out what was taking so long.

A second metro police officer picked his gun up off the front passenger seat, where Pistorius had left it. Pistorius had a "verbal altercation" with the officer, Fresco said to questions from prosecutor Gerrie Nel.

"The accused replied 'you can't just touch another man's gun'," Fresco said.

"He was furious that someone else had touched his gun."

After he was sworn in, Judge Thokozile Masipa told Fresco that if he answered questions truthfully and honestly, he would be discharged from prosecution.

He faces possible charges related to arms and ammunition control legislation.

Pistorius is accused of the murder of model and law graduate Steenkamp on February 14 last year. She was shot in the arm, hip and head.

He is also charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, and two counts of discharging a firearm in public.

He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013.

In September 2010, he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

Oscar trial probes 'gastric emptying' - Sapa

The science of "gastric emptying" was discussed during Oscar Pistorius's murder trial in the High Court in Pretoria on Tuesday.

Prof Gert Saayman, who performed the post mortem on Reeva Steenkamp, said to questioning from prosecutor Gerrie Nel that Steenkamp's bladder would have been empty had she gone to the toilet between 30 minutes to an hour before her death.

Asked about her stomach contents, Saayman said she could have eaten her last meal about two hours before her death. He took pains to qualify this statement by saying that estimating the time of gastric emptying was not an exact science and that he was relying on his years of experience and studying.

Saayman was excused from the witness stand and court adjourned for tea.

He earlier said to questioning from Nel that he estimated having performed or supervised between 10,000 and 15,000 medico-legal post mortem exams during his 30-year career.

Pistorius is accused of the murder of model and law graduate Steenkamp on February 14 last year. She was shot in the arm, hip and head.

He is also charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, and two counts of discharging a firearm in public.

He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013.

In September 2010 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

Prof Saayman reads journals into record - Sapa

Oscar Pistorius's murder trial resumed after a short break on Tuesday morning after the defence and witness Prof Gert Saayman exchanged copies of medical literature.

Barry Roux, for Pistorius, asked Saayman, the pathologist who conducted the post mortem on Reeva Steenkamp, to read into the court record the titles of several journals.

The bespectacled Saayman, who testified standing in the witness box, read out arcane titles such as "Frequent Feeding Delays: The Subsequent Emptying of a Gastric Meal" and "The Effects of Posture on Gastric Emptying".

This had to do with questions over when Steenkamp had her last meal, and when she could have gone to the toilet before she was killed.

Saayman earlier said to questioning from prosecutor Gerrie Nel that he estimated having performed or supervised between 10,000 and 15,000 medico-legal post mortem exams during his 30-year career.

Pistorius is accused of the murder of his girlfriend, model and law graduate Steenkamp, on February 14 last year. She was shot in the arm, hip and head.

He is also charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, and two counts of discharging a firearm in public.

He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013.

In September 2010 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

Adjournment for Pistorius - Sapa

Oscar Pistorius's murder trial adjourned shortly after it started on Tuesday for his defence to check the articles that the pathologist referred to during testimony on Reeva Steenkamp's death.

Barry Roux SC said he would need about half an hour to read through the articles, not cited in Professor Gert Saayman's post mortem report, which left Pistorius retching in court when it was read in the High Court in Pretoria on Monday.

The testimony related to her bladder contents when she died.

Before Judge Thokozile Masipa granted the adjournment, Saayman interjected to say that his findings were not just based on reading academic articles, but years of continuous synthesis of his own experience and years of continuous reading of literature.

Roux said he too had an article, from a textbook, which he would like to give Saayman during the break.

In his cross-examination, Saayman repeated that Steenkamp had about a teaspoon of cloudy urine in her bladder when she died after being shot by Pistorius on February 14, 2013.

The murky appearance was due to the breakdown of the cells in the lining of the bladder.

He said that a few seconds after being shot, there was minimum impact on a person's cognitive capacity.

He discussed the factors that affect how often people emptied their bladder.

Tuesday's proceedings appeared to be less dramatic for Pistorius, who was quiet compared with Monday when he retched during descriptions of Steenkamp's physical injuries.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charge of murdering her, as well as to several Firearms Act charges.

Roux asks about effect of rapid shots - Sapa

The effect of several rapid gunshots on a body was raised by Oscar Pistorius's lawyer in the High Court in Pretoria on Tuesday.

Barry Roux told pathologist Prof Gert Saayman, who was in the witness box, he wanted to understand the trauma on a body by shots fired in quick succession.

Saayman said shots fired into a person's hip or arm could cause a fight or flight response, but would not affect cognitive functions.

Saayman said to questioning from prosecutor Gerrie Nel that he estimated he had performed between 10,000 and 15,000 medico-legal post mortem examinations.

Pistorius is accused of the murder of model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp on February 14 last year. She was shot in the arm, hip and head.

He is also charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, and two counts of discharging a firearm in public.

He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013.

In September 2010 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

Oscar trial moves into day seven - Sapa

Paralympian Oscar Pistorius's murder trial continues in the High Court in Pretoria on Tuesday following an emotional day six.

The "Blade Runner" cried and retched in court on Monday as he listened to findings from the autopsy on Reeva Steenkamp, whom he shot and killed on Valentine's Day last year.

Pathologist Gert Saayman told the court that Steenkamp was shot with expanding bullets designed to cause maximum tissue damage.

He described bullet wounds in the model's head and hip, as well as bruises to her back, buttocks and breast and suggested some of the injuries were caused by wood splinters from the bathroom door through which the shots were fired.

Saayman's testimony was twice interrupted by the sound of Pistorius weeping and gagging.

The pathologist was the first witness in the trial whose testimony was not broadcast live on television after he objected, saying it would rob Steenkamp of her dignity.

The trial continues with Saayman on the stand.