'Reeva was standing behind the toilet door talking to you when you shot her'

'Reeva was standing behind the toilet
door talking to you when you shot her'-
Prosecutors say
Oscar Pistorius' three-day cross-examination reached
a dramatic climax today as the world-famous athlete
was accused of deliberately shooting his girlfriend
through a toilet door as the couple talked and argued
in the early hours of Valentine's Day last year.
"You knew that Reeva went behind the door and
you shot at her,' Mr Nel said. 'You shot at her
knowing she was behind the door.'
Pistorius denied the charge as prosecutor Gerrie Nel
pushed the Paralympic champion on his version of
the exact events in the seconds before he killed
Reeva Steenkamp by firing four times through the
stall door in his bathroom with his 9mm pistol on
February 14, 2013.
Mr Nel challenged the double-amputee sprinter
repeatedly as to why Miss Steenkamp failed to
scream when she was shot four times.Continue...
Mr Nel, one of South Africa's top attorneys, said it
was beyond belief that 29-year-old law graduate and
model Miss Steenkamp would have remained silent
in the tiny cubicle with an armed Pistorius shouting
and screaming in the adjoining bathroom.
Mr Nel later followed up with his central accusation -
that the couple had an argument and Steenkamp
fled to the toilet pursued by Pistorius, who then shot
her through the closed wooden door.
Pistorius denied the accusation, before the court
adjourned until Monday morning.
Pistorius, who claims he shot Miss Steenkamp by
mistake thinking she was a nighttime intruder
behind a toilet door in his bathroom, faces life in
prison if convicted of murder.
Pistorius says he shouted at what he thought was an
intruder in his house and also at Miss Steenkamp to
call the police.
Mr Nel said that if that were the case, she would not
have stood up against the door. She would have
retreated away from it. And she would have
responded to Pistorius, the chief prosecutor said.
'I don't think anybody could say where she would
have stood,' Pistorius replied.
Mr Nel led the double-amputee runner through his
own account of what happened in the moments
before he shot Miss Steenkamp.
Pistorius said he heard a noise in the bathroom and
moved down a hallway on his stumps towards the
bathroom while screaming to his girlfriend - who he
claims he had believed was in the bedroom - to get
down and call the police.
He said he then heard what sounded like the toilet
door slamming, then kept quiet as he reached the
bathroom entrance, then heard a noise in the toilet
that he perceived to be the sound of wood on wood,
which he said made him think someone was opening
the toilet door - which he said fit badly in the frame -
to attack him.
And then, Pistorius said, he opened fire.
At each stage, Mr Nel argued that the account was
improbable, questioning why Pistorius did not
establish where Miss Steenkamp was and make sure
she was okay, and why he would approach the
alleged danger zone if he felt vulnerable on his
stumps.
Mr Nel said: 'If you spoke to Reeva, the two of you
could have taken lots of other steps.'
Pistorius said he thought the perceived threat could
strike at any moment: 'There was no time.'
During the cross-examination, Pistorius said
Steenkamp did not scream at any point during the
incident.
However, the 27-year-old track star said that he may
not have heard her cries because of his ears ringing
from the first shot.
Several people living nearby have testified to hearing
a woman's terrified screams before and during a
volley of shots.
'She's awake. She's in the toilet. You're shouting.
You're screaming. You're three metres from her. She
would have responded. She would not have been
quiet, Mr Pistorius,' Mr Nel said.
'She didn't respond, my Lady,' Pistorius replied,
addressing judge Thokozile Masipa.
'Did she scream at all whilst you shot her four times?'
Mr Nel continued.
'No, my Lady.'
'Are you sure? Are you sure, Mr Pistorius, that Reeva
did not scream after the first shot?' Mr Nel continued.
'Are you, Mr Pistorius?'
After a brief silence, Pistorius said: 'My Lady, I wish
she had let me know she was there.'
'After you fired the first shot, did she scream?' Mr Nel
asked.
'No, my Lady.'
'Are you sure? Would you have heard her?' Mr Nel
asked.
'I don't think I would have heard her.'
'Exactly.'
'A gunshot went off, my ears were ringing,' Pistorius
said.
'How can you exclude the fact she was screaming if
you couldn't hear?' Mr Nel asked.
'If I couldn't hear it then I couldn't hear,' Pistorius
retorted.
'No, you said, Mr Pistorius, she never screamed. You
couldn't hear. You're just saying that,' Mr Nel said.
'That is what I'm saying,' Pistorius replied.
'No, that's not what you're saying. You're saying she
didn't scream,' Mr Nel followed up.
'My Lady, the sound of that gunshot in the bathroom,
you wouldn't have heard anyone scream. The
decibels of the gunshot, I don't believe you would
have heard anyone scream. When I had finished
firing the gunshots, I was screaming and I couldn't
hear my own voice.'
Pistorius' return to the witness box today followed a
week of testimony in which the double-amputee
runner said he killed Miss Steenkamp by accident
after mistaking her for an intruder in his home last
year.
Mr Nel challenged the athlete's statements that he
was worried about crime before the fatal shooting.
The prosecutor examined the details of the alarm
system at Pistorius' house, questioning why the
athlete would believe an intruder had broken into his
home when he had extensive security measures,
including interior and exterior sensors.
Pistorius said he activated the sensors on the home
alarm system before going to sleep on the night he
killed Miss Steenkamp, but feared that building
contractors doing work on his house may have
moved some of the security beacons.
The prosecutor said Pistorius had not mentioned
immediately after the shooting that he had fears that
building contractors had removed some of the
security beacons, specifically near the bathroom
window where he allegedly thought an intruder may
have gained access on the night he killed Miss
Steenkamp.
Querying why Pistorius had not mentioned those
fears earlier, Mr Nel said the athlete was trying to
build a story to explain his fears of an intruder and
therefore a mistaken shooting.
'This is the biggest example of you tailoring your
evidence,' Mr Nel said. Pistorius denied he was
fabricating a story.
Pistorius also said he was struggling to give clear
testimony because he was tired, prompting the
judge to ask him if he was too tired to proceed with a
tough cross-examination from the chief prosecutor.
Pistorius was responding to a question from Mr Nel,
who pointed to a lack of clarity in the double-
amputee runner's testimony about whether he
turned off the alarm inside his home on the night of
February 14, 2013.
Pistorius said he 'must have' turned off the alarm,
which Mr Nel described as a vague response.
The prosecutor then asked Pistorius, who
acknowledged making a mistake in his testimony, if
he needed time before continuing with his
testimony.
'I don't need time,' the Olympic athlete said. 'I am
tired. It's not going to change.'
Mr Nel responded: 'You're trying to cover up for lies
and I'm not convinced.'
Judge Thokozile Masipa interjected, asking Pistorius
if he was too tired to proceed.
'You can be at a disadvantage when you're in that
box,' she said, adding that it wasn't fair to the court if
he was not alert during the proceedings.
Pistorius replied that he was able to go on.
Mr Nel also argued that Pistorius was prepared to lie
about an incident as far back as five years ago when
he claims someone shot at him from another car on a
highway to build a backstory that he had a long-held
fear of being attacked.
Pistorius said he saw a 'muzzle flash' and heard 'a
banging noise' as a black Mercedes drove past him in
the incident, which he said was in 2008 or 2009.
Pistorius said he slowed down, turned off the
highway and eventually went to a restaurant car park
and called someone to come and pick him up.
Mr Nel asked Pistorius who he called and Pistorius
replied he couldn't remember.
'You cannot not remember,' Mr Nel said. It was 'such
a traumatic incident,' the prosecutor said.
Mr Nel said Pistorius' failing to remember who he
called was because 'it never happened.'
'It's the one night that someone almost shot you, am
I right?' Mr Nel said. Pistorius said it was.
'If I could remember who I phoned I would gladly give
you their name,' Pistorius said.
At one point in the proceedings, Judge Masipa had to
warn Mr Nel to 'mind your language' as she reminded
him not to call a witness a liar.
The prosecution says Pistorius killed the 29-year-old
after an argument on February 14, 2013.
Culled from UK Daily Mail