Pretoria - Oscar Pistorius’s dead biological mother came to her in a dream and asked her to help her son.
This is what a woman who claims to have known Pistorius since he was a toddler is saying.
While Pistorius’s legal team was battling it out in the magistrate’s court to obtain bail for him, the woman approached a Pretoria High Court judge and demanded that he “immediately” put a stop to the bail proceedings, until Pistorius has been referred for mental observation.
The application was brought on Thursday by a woman calling herself “Annamarie”.
She said her last name was uncertain as she was previously Riethmiller and also previously Versfeld – “ex-wife of Oscar’s orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Gerald Versfeld.”
She cited Pistorius as the respondent in the matter.
Annamarie told Judge Joseph Raulinga that Pistorius immediately had to be referred for 60 days of observation by a panel of independent psychiatrists. This, she said, was “to determine his sanity at the time of causing the death of Reeva Steenkamp”.
She also wanted the court to direct that all future proceedings regarding Oscar be held in camera, “until such time as the media refrain from making a circus out of the South African judicial system”.
Annamarie explained to the judge that she felt Pistorius snapped the night he shot Steenkamp as this was not the “Oscar I knew as a little boy”.
She also said that she on Monday night saw Pistorius’s biological mother, Sheila, who died years ago, in a dream. “I could feel her presence and I knew she was asking me to do something. I also saw him vividly as he was as a disabled little boy. I just knew I had to do this in memory of Sheila. Was Oscar mentally sound on the night of the shooting? This is what it is all about,” the woman said.
According to her, his disability had a big mental effect on him. She said she was no stranger to mental problems, as her former husband (Riethmiller) also suffered from a mental condition.
“Oscar felt vulnerable when he did not have his legs on. He was then like a wobbly midget. I know his disability was very difficult for him. His mother brought him up as a true Christian and he is a lovely boy. He has such a lovely character.”
Annamarie is of the opinion that on the night of the shooting, Pistorius was like a pressure cooker that just boiled over. “I truly believe he had a mental breakdown, as this is not the Oscar I know.”
She told Judge Raulinga that she tried to voice these fears earlier in the morning to the magistrate’s hearing the bail application, but he was not prepared to hear her. She then, in the name of justice and because the constitution demanded it of her, decided to turn to the high court.
The judge several times advised her to rather obtain legal counsel, but the woman said she had a legal qualification. She now lived in the US and she knew it was her constitutional right to approach a court to see that due process was followed.
She bitterly complained about the “havoc” at the lower court and said justice could never be served, as it was a media circus that was being entertained at the court.
Pretoria News