Oscar Trial Resumes – Oscar’s Neighbours Testify


By Oliver Ngwenya    05-May-2014 19:39 UTC+02:00
Reeva Steenkamp and Oscar Pistorius pictured attending a sport awards event. It is rumoured that they had met for the first time earlier that night. – image – www.mirror.uk

Reeva Steenkamp and Oscar Pistorius pictured attending a sport awards event. – image – www.mirror.uk

After a lay off of seventeen days, the movie like trial of the South African double amputee athlete and paralympian, Oscar Pistorius, resumed at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Monday. Oscar is facing a charge of premeditated murder as well as separate charges: discharge of a firearm in public places and another one of illegal possession of ammunition.

The prosecution, the state, is arguing that the killing of Oscar’s girlfriend, model and law student Reeva Steenkamp was intentional and pre-planned. They contend that the couple had an argument in the small hours of Valentine’s day of 2013. The exchange turned violent, leading to Reeva running to hide in the toilet cubicle. An irate Oscar then armed himself with a gun and shot Reeva four times through the door. The defence, on the other hand insist that the killing of Reeva was an error on Oscar’s part. He did not realise that Reeva had gone into the toilet and when he heard noise in there, he quickly thought that it was an intruder and proceeded to shoot.

When it opened, the defence called in the neighbors to Oscar who are also the same people he called after the incident. Johan Stander, who was also the manager at the estate where the incident took place, said in his testimony that Oscar showed a lot of commitment to ensuring that Reeva was revived. He added that Oscar was all the time begging the young lady to stay alive. His daughter was also called in to the witness stand and she reiterated what her father had said in that Oscar kept shouting for Reeva to stay with him and not leave him. Carice Stander Viljoen testified that when she got to Oscar’s house, there was blood everywhere and given the state that he was in, she was afraid that Oscar would shoot himself.

Unlike his style, Gerrie Nel did not do much cross examination of the two witnesses. His only challenge to the day was when he referred to Mr Stander’s account of events as a mistake. The court proceedings were adjourned after the defence lawyer Barry Roux requested the adjournment.


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