{"id":13144,"date":"2014-03-15T07:57:39","date_gmt":"2014-03-15T07:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/police-mishandled-evidence-in-pistorius-murder\/"},"modified":"2014-03-15T07:57:35","modified_gmt":"2014-03-15T07:57:35","slug":"police-mishandled-evidence-in-pistorius-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/police-mishandled-evidence-in-pistorius-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Police \u2018Mishandled\u2019 Evidence in Pistorius Murder Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

{{The officer who arrested Oscar Pistorius on the night Reeva Steenkamp was killed last year testified Friday that police at the crime scene mishandled evidence, including a ballistics expert who handled the murder weapon without gloves.}}<\/p>\n

Former station chief Giliam van Rensburg, who was among the first on the scene of the crime and who arrested Pistorius, retired from the police force last year.<\/p>\n

Police conduct following the 2013 Valentine’s Day killing could have a strong bearing on the outcome of the trial if the presiding judge, Thokozile Masipa, believes that vital forensic evidence was so tainted as to be inadmissable.<\/p>\n

Van Rensburg said he saw one policeman mishandling the murder weapon, a 9mm pistol, which was left on the blood-soaked bathroom mat in Pistorius\u2019 home.<\/p>\n

“At that particular moment, the ballistics expert was handling the firearm without gloves,” Van Rensburg told the court. He added that the officer had removed the gun\u2019s magazine.<\/p>\n

He also told the court that at least one watch, worth as much as $10,000 (\u20ac7,000), vanished from the track star\u2019s home while forensic experts were examining a blood-splattered box containing seven other timepieces.<\/p>\n

“I saw those watches and I said, this is tempting for any person because this is [sic] expensive watches,” he told the court.<\/p>\n

Van Rensburg said he reacted with anger when he discovered that a watch was in fact missing.<\/p>\n

“I said, ‘I can’t believe it. We were just there. How can this watch be gone?'”<\/p>\n

When searches failed to turn up the missing watch a theft docket was opened, he said, adding: “I was furious.”<\/p>\n

{{Contradictory evidence}}<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Under cross-examination, Van Rensburg conceded that there were several contradictions between his statements and those of other police officers at the scene, saying some of his colleagues had submitted hearsay evidence.<\/p>\n

He disputed evidence described by the former lead detective on the case, Hilton Botha, and expressed his shock by yelling “Amazing!” when he heard Botha’s version of events.<\/p>\n

During the athlete’s bail hearing last year, Botha admitted that he had walked through the scene without protective footwear and missed identifying a bullet that had lodged in the toilet bowl.<\/p>\n

Defence lawyer Barry Roux has previously criticised the police’s conduct and the issue is expected to be a key element of the trial as it continues.<\/p>\n

Van Rensburg described for the court a series of photos taken at the crime scene shortly after Reeva Steenkamp was shot in the early hours of the morning.<\/p>\n

They included nightmare images of the 29-year-old model’s fatal head wound and photos of a shirtless Pistorius covered in blood shortly after the shooting.<\/p>\n

In several images the athlete is seen standing in his garage, expressionless and staring straight at the camera, wearing blue blood-soaked shorts and with dried blood on his left arm.<\/p>\n

Other photos showed the blood-drenched toilet stall where Steenkamp was shot, as well as bullet marks on the wall.<\/p>\n

Pistorius, 27, says he shot Steenkamp through the locked bathroom door after he mistook her for an intruder in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n

AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{The officer who arrested Oscar Pistorius on the night Reeva Steenkamp was killed last year testified Friday that police at the crime scene mishandled evidence, including a ballistics expert who handled the murder weapon without gloves.}} Former station chief Giliam van Rensburg, who was among the first on the scene of the crime and who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000050940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-13144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000050940,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13144.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13144.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13144.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13144.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13144.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13144.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000050940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13144"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=13144"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=13144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}