The murder trial of Oscar Pistorius wrapped up on Friday with the prosecution making a final plea for the South African athlete to “face the consequences” of shooting dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.<\/p>\n
Judge Thokozile Masipa, only the second black woman to be appointed a high court judge in post-apartheid South Africa, will now analyse more than 4,000 pages of evidence before delivering her verdict on Sept. 11.<\/p>\n
Double amputee Pistorius, 27, once a national icon for reaching the pinnacle of sport, is accused of murdering Steenkamp, a law graduate and model, at his home in Pretoria on Valentine’s Day last year.<\/p>\n
The defence says Pistorius, nicknamed the ‘Blade Runner’ after his carbon-fibre prosthetic running legs, shot Steenkamp through a locked toilet door in self-defence, believing she was an intruder, and that therefore he should be acquitted.<\/p>\n
State prosecutor Gerrie Nel has spent the trial, which began in March, portraying Pistorius as a gun-obsessed hothead who deliberately shot Steenkamp, 29, four times as she was taking refuge in the toilet after an argument.<\/p>\n
Cutting through months of complex evidence and testimony, Nel ended proceedings by returning to his core argument.<\/p>\n
“He knew there was a human being in the toilet. That’s his evidence,” Nel told the judge.<\/p>\n
reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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