Oscar sobs over schedule six charge

INLSA

A security guard tries to bring some order to the chaos at Pretoria Magistrates Court on Tuesday morning as journalists and members of the public scramble to find a spot at Oscar Pistoriuss bail application hearing. Picture: Antoine de Ras

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Paralympian Oscar Pistorius has to answer to a charge of premeditated murder.

Just after noon on Tuesday Magistrate Desmond Nair ruled that the state had successfully argued Pistorius was facing a schedule six offence rather than a less serious schedule five.

This means the onus shifts from the State onto the defence to now prove why Pistorius should be granted bail in the face of a strong case against him.

Advocate Gerrie Nel, the prosecutor who is charging the Blade Runner with the premeditated murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, who was shot dead through Pistorius’s bathroom door on Valentine’s Day.

Pistorius was on Tuesday applying for bail in Pretoria Magistrate’s Court.

He entered the courtroom at about 9.35am after a media frenzy in which journalists jostled for a spot in the courtroom calmed down. The chaos erupted again, however, as court adjourned for 20 minutes just before 11am.

Oscar Pistorius

REUTERS

Before the break, as the State read the charges against him, Pistorius sat slumped, at times weeping with his head cupped in his hands.

“Are you okay Mr Pistorius?” asked Magistrate Desmond Nair as the Paralympian, dressed in a black suit and blue T-shirt, took his place in the dock.

With his hands clasped together before him, he shrugged his shoulders, his eyes welling with tears.

“Under the circumstances?” asked Nair.

Pistorius nodded silently.

Then began the State’s arguments into why they believed the man accused of gunning down his model girlfriend on Valentine’s Day last week should answer to a schedule 6 charge – premeditated murder – which carried a heavier sentence than schedule 5.

“The deceased was shot three times while she was in the bathroom. The door to the toilet was broken from the outside. We say from there that it was locked and therefore broken open.

“We say when he said he thought it was a burglar, that was pre-planning because why would a burglar lock himself in the bathroom? The only reasonable inference is that the applicant armed himself, walked 7m to the bathroom and shot the deceased while she was in the toilet.

“He would have been in bed with the deceased,” said Nel.

He argued further that when Oscar told a friend that he had mistaken Steenkamp for a burglar, this was pre-planning because he walked from his bed with the intention to kill the burglar.

“Premeditation doesn’t require months of planning. Even in his version, he walked into the bathroom with intent to kill the burglar. He walks into the bathroom, breaks the door and shoots and kills.”

But the defence had a different version, saying that Oscar possibly broke open the bathroom door to rescue Steenkamp once he realised he had shot her by mistake.

“Was the door broken to kill her or to take her out once he realised who it was?” argued defence lawyer Barry Roux as his client wept uncontrollably in the dock.

He challenged the State’s argument that it was strange for Pistorius to have mistaken Steenkamp for a burglar as he lived in a highly secure complex.

“Are we immune to what’s happening out there? I will put to you cases where husbands shot dead their wives because they thought they were burglars. Is that pre-planned… when he says I thought it was a burglar?” argued Roux.

He further argued that high-security complexes gave a false sense of security.

“Your worship, how many cases should I bring to you of murders in safe security complexes? You just need to open a newspaper,” he said.

In response, Nel asked why Steenkamp would have locked herself in the bathroom when it was just her and Pistorius in the house.

“She wakes up, early morning, then locks herself up in the bathroom. Why would she do that? Why?” asked Nel, adding that Pistorius had plenty of time to consider what he was doing, as he had first put on his prosthetic legs before walking 7m and firing shoots at Steenkamp.

Once he had shot Steenkamp, Pistorius carried her down the stairs to the living room.

In the gallery, Minister of Women, Children and People with Disabilities Lulu Xingwana sat listening to the proceedings, with ANC Youth League members.

The courtroom was too small to accommodate all the media, so an accreditation process needed to take place. A maximum of 26 journalists including 10 reporters, two sketch artists, eight photographers, three TV cameramen and three radio journalists were allowed in.

Reporters and cameramen crawled under tables and got onto chairs to be first on the list.