Oscar 'didn't know Reeva was behind door'

2013-02-19 11:26

Pretoria - The State cannot prove that paralympian Oscar Pistorius knew his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was on the other side of the bathroom door when she was shot, his lawyer said in court on Tuesday.

Evidence would also be brought if needed, of men who had shot their wives or children thinking they were burglars, advocate Barry Roux said at Pistorius's bail application in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court.

Roux said he would also bring evidence of burglaries and robberies at security complexes, if necessary.

Pistorius is charged with the murder of Steenkamp at his home in the early hours of Valentine's Day last week.

A teary-eyed Pistorius watched while Roux countered the State's indication at his first appearance on Friday that it intended arguing that Steenkamp's death was pre-meditated murder.

"We submit it's not even murder," Roux said.

"There's no agreement there, not even concession that this is murder."

Earlier, State prosecutor Gerrie Nel repeated that the State's case was that her death was pre-meditated, and that it rejected that she may have been mistaken for a burglar when she was shot three times through a bathroom door.

"We say this in itself constitutes premeditated murder of a burglar," said Nel.

While this was taking place, the coffin of the model and law graduate was being carried into the chapel at the Victoria Park Crematorium in Port Elizabeth on Tuesday morning for a private family funeral service.

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- SAPA