Gerrie Nel’s interrogation in court today must have sounded the death knell for many still clinging to the idea of Oscar Pistorius’s innocence.
[full]With brutal precision he uncovered a number of logical flaws in the version of events presented by Pistorius, finally tripping up the athlete in his own words.
“I ran to the balcony to check… I mean call for help,” said Pistorius, who had earlier indicated he was, by this point, certain it was his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in the bathroom.
Today marked Pistorius’s sixth day on the stand, and his fourth day of cross-examination by prosecutor Nel.
He has maintained without wavering that he got up on the night of her death to move a set of fans indoors and was picking up Reeva’s jeans when he heard a window in the bathroom slide open and hit the frame.
[Related: Key points of day 22]
He says he raced to retrieve his gun from below the bed where Reeva lay. He says he warned her to get down and call the police. He says he went down the corridor to confront the robber and heard the toilet door slam. He says he heard a noise as he rounded the corner – a noise he perceived to be a robber leaving the toilet ¬– and reacted in fright by firing four shots at the door.
He says he called out for Reeva and got no answer. He says he stumbled back to the bedroom to check on her and, without turning on the lights, found no one in the bed and no one on the floor and no one behind the curtains.
The question that prompted the slow unraveling was startling in its simplicity: “Why, when you came back to the bedroom, did you not check the bedroom door to see if she had left the room?
“Nothing was normal that night,” came Pistorius’s answer.
“Why did you not turn on the lights?”
Pistorius didn’t know.
The next blow: “You had to part the curtains to unlock and open the door. How is this possible with a cocked gun in your hand?”
Pistorius stumbled: maybe he only opened one sliding door, maybe he opened both.
“Why, if you were certain Reeva was in the bathroom, did you pick up the gun to take back into the bathroom after putting your legs on?”
Pistorius couldn’t remember. But he knew it was Reeva in the bathroom, and he knew he had to get to her. So he raced back to the bathroom and attempted to open the door with his shoulder, he said.
Then he ran to the balcony to check for… no, call for…
Nel pounced: “Check for? Why were you checking, Mr Pistorius?”
“I’m sorry, I meant call for help,” Pistorius replied.
“But you said check for. The record will show that you said ‘check’,” Nel boomed.
[Related: Pistorius “using emotions as an escape”, prosecutor says]
It’s been Oscar’s first solid trip and backtrack since his time on the stand began.
The picture Mr Nel sketches as an alternative is horrifying: that Reeva was standing at the door, talking or perhaps reasoning with Pistorius when he fired his weapon to get her to leave the locked toilet.
Nel contends Oscar became emotional when recounting what he shouted at the robbers – necessitating the second adjournment of the day – because he shouted those same words at Reeva. “Isn’t it because that is what you were screaming at Reeva, ‘Get the fuck out of my house’?”
The trial resumes tomorrow at 9.30am, when Mr Nel is expected to continue his cross-examination. [/full]