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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cutting through months of complex evidence and testimony, Nel ended proceedings by returning to his core argument.
“He knew there was a human being in the toilet. That’s his evidence,” Nel told the judge.
reuters
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