Pretoria - Oscar Pistorius's credibility was consistently
questioned at his murder trial on Thursday, as the chief prosecutor argued that
the star athlete had a string of unlikely excuses why he wasn't to blame in the
three gun charges he faces on top of murder for the shooting death of
girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Prosecutor Gerrie Nel, in cross-examining Pistorius for a
second day, doubted the Olympian's honesty. It goes to the heart of the case.
Nel asserted that the double-amputee runner wouldn't
"accept responsibility for anything" and reacted incredulously to
Pistorius's explanation of why a gun he was handling went off under a table in
a packed restaurant, for which he was charged with firing a gun in public
without good reason.
Pistorius said a friend's pistol, a Glock, went off while
he was holding it but insisted that he hadn't pulled the trigger.
The incident happened just weeks before model Steenkamp
was shot to death by Pistorius on 14 February 2013.
A police expert testified earlier at the trial that the
Glock couldn't be fired without the trigger being pulled.
Nel said: "We have you in possession of the gun, a
shot went off, but you didn't discharge the gun?... I'm putting it to you, you
fired that gun. There is no other way," Nel said. "You are
lying."
"I respect Mr Nel's comment," Pistorius
replied, "but I didn't pull the trigger on that firearm."
Pistorius also said two witnesses, a former girlfriend
and a friend, were both lying about an incident in 2012 when the runner is
alleged to have fired his gun out the sunroof of a moving car.
Pistorius said he wasn't guilty of yet another against
him, illegal possession of ammunition for .38-caliber ammunition found in a
safe in his home after he killed Steenkamp.
Pistorius said his father had put the bullets into the
safe and that they belonged to the father. But Nel said Pistorius's father
Henke had "refused" to make a statement to police on the ammunition
being his.
"You just don't want to accept responsibility for
anything," Nel said to Pistorius. Pistorius's answers to the accusations
were short denials.
Oscar’s credibility
By attacking Pistorius's credibility on the other three
charges, Nel was pushing the prosecution's argument that Pistorius, a multiple
Paralympic champion, is also lying about killing his girlfriend by mistake in
the pre-dawn hours of Valentine's Day last year.
Pistorius, 27, says Steenkamp's death was a terrible
accident after he mistook her for an intruder and fired four times with his
licensed 9 mm pistol through a toilet door and into a cubicle. Prosecutors say
he intended to kill the 29-year-old after a loud argument heard by witnesses
and charged him with premeditated murder - for which he faces 25 years to life
in prison if convicted.
Pistorius insisted again on Thursday that the shooting
was an accident and he did not intentionally fire four shots.
"I didn't have time to think about if I wanted to or
didn't want to," Pistorius said. It was his fourth day in the witness
stand, the first two days having been spent being questioned by his own
attorney, Barry Roux.
Apology to family
Nel also accused him of egotistical behaviour in his
relationship with Steenkamp, and described Pistorius's courtroom apology to his
girlfriend's family on Monday as an insincere "spectacle" that
ignored the feelings of her relatives. Steenkamp's mother, June, has attended
court sessions this week.
"Your life is just about you," Nel said to
Pistorius, claiming he wasn't "humble enough" to apologise in private
to the family and away from the media glare of his murder trial, which is being
broadcast live around the world.
"That's not true," Pistorius replied.
Pistorius said his lawyers had been in touch with
representatives of Steenkamp's family, and that he had believed the family of
his girlfriend was not ready to meet him.
"I completely understand where they're coming
from," he said. "It's not that I haven't thought about them."
Nel asserted that Pistorius was sometimes mean to
Steenkamp, pressing him about her objection to him playing a song by American
rapper Kendrick Lamar on a car stereo.
Pistorius referred to the song in a cellphone message to
Steenkamp that acknowledged her objections and has been included as evidence in
the trial.
The prosecutor asked if the name of the song was Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe, but Pistorius
said he couldn't remember the specific song. Nel responded that Steenkamp would
have been right to take offense, but "we can't ask her”.
‘I love you’
A phone message from Steenkamp to Pistorius that was
shown in court includes the line: "You make me happy 90% of the time and I
think we are amazing together but I am not some other bitch you may know trying
to kill your vibe."
Two contrasting images of the double-amputee runner have
emerged in court: The defence-led image of Pistorius as a contrite man who had
been worried about crime and made a mistake on the night he killed Steenkamp,
and the prosecution's depiction of him as an overbearing egotist who was
obsessed with firearms and killed her intentionally.
On the relationship, Nel said he had checked all of
Steenkamp's text messages on her phone and the phrase "I love you"
appeared only twice in those missives.
On both occasions, he said, they were written by
Steenkamp to her mother.
"Never to you and you never to her," Nel said,
addressing Pistorius.
"I never got the opportunity to tell Reeva that I
loved her," Pistorius said in a soft voice.
He did not look at Nel while replying to the prosecutor's
questions, instead directing his gaze to Judge Thokozile Masipa on the dais.
