A South African prosecutor forced Oscar Pistorius on Wednesday to look at a forensic photograph of the head of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp after it was destroyed by a gunshot fired by the Olympic and Paralympic track star.
In a dramatic opening to his cross-examination of Pistorius,
prosecutor Gerrie Nel made him say that he had killed Steenkamp
then later confronted him with the photograph showing the side and back of her skull matted with blood and brains.
“Take responsibility for what you have done,” Nel said, drawing gasps from the public gallery and causing Pistorius to bury his head in his hands in the witness stand, rock from side to side and weep.
The double amputee sprinter, once revered across the world for his triumph over adversity, faces life in prison if convicted in the Pretoria High Court of the murder of Steenkamp, a 29-year-old law graduate and model.
His defense hinges on his contention that he thought he was firing at an intruder when he shot Steenkamp through a toilet door in his luxury Pretoria home on February 14 – Valentine’s Day – 2013.
Nel, renowned as one of South Africa’s toughest state attorneys, sought to show the 27-year-old was a hot-headed character who loved to play with guns.
He asked Pistorius, well-known as a weapons enthusiast, if he knew what a “zombie stopper” was, to which the defendant answered no.
After a brief adjournment, the court then viewed video footage broadcast before the trial by Britain’s Sky News of Pistorius firing a .50 caliber handgun at a watermelon at a shooting range.
As the melon disintegrates, Pistorius says off-camera: “It’s a lot softer than brains. But (bleep) it’s like a zombie stopper.”
Nel then pushed the track star, saying he had shot the melon because he wanted to see what a bullet hitting a person’s head looked like.
“You know that the same happened to Reeva’s head. It exploded. I’m going to show you,” he said, before projecting the forensic photograph of Steenkamp’s head on the court monitors.
reuters
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