Pretoria – Prosecutor Gerrie Nel brought murder-accused Oscar Pistorius to anger and tears in the North Gauteng High Court on Wednesday when he tried to force him to look at a photograph of Reeva Steenkamp’s bloodied head.
Nel asked Pistorius to compare it to an exploding watermelon that he had been filmed shooting at.

“You know that the same happened to Reeva’s head. It exploded,” said Nel after showing Pistorius a clip from a Sky News video of Pistorius at a shooting range.

Pistorius was asked to look at a picture of Reeva Steenkamp whom he had admitted shooting dead in a toilet in his house.

With a screen right next to him, he would not.

Steenkamp’s mother June was held tight by a friend in the front of the court as a picture of her daughter with blood and tissue on her blonde hair was shown.

Pistorius said: I will not look at a picture of where I am tormented by what I saw.”

Nel said: “It is the same thing as a watermelon.”

‘Uncalled for’

As the court gasped, Pistorius’s lawyer Barry Roux SC jumped up and said: “That is uncalled for.”

Pistorius started crying and Judge Thokozile Masipa allowed an adjournment for Pistorius to compose himself.

Even hardened reporters in the gallery were seen wiping away tears and muttering under their breath.

During the adjournment, another prosecutor Andrea Johnson went over to June Steenkamp.

She told Steenkamp and her family and friends, within earshot of the gallery, that what had happened in court happened in murder trials every day

‘Zombie stopper’ video

Earlier, the video in which Pistorius refers to a gun as “a zombie stopper” was allowed to be screened in court.

Roux said he would not persist with his objection if the State did not see it as part of its evidence.

Nel agreed and the video was shown.

The video, of Pistorius and several other people at a shooting range, shows the murder accused firing at a watermelon with a handgun. As he hits it and it explodes, there are whoops of triumph.

“It’s not as soft as brains but fuck it’s a zombie stopper,” a person who sounds much like Pistorius is heard saying. The video found its way online.

Mistake

Earlier, Nel began his cross-examination by confronting Pistorius with the fact that he killed Steenkamp.

“You made a mistake?” Nel snapped at him.

“You killed a person. You shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp. Why don’t you take responsibility for that?”

Nel began with the statement: “Mr Pistorius you were and still are one of the most recognised faces in the world. You are a model for disabled and able-bodied sportsmen all over the world.”

Pistorius replied softly that this was the case before he made “a mistake”.

“Let us get to the truth,” Nel continued.

Charges

Pistorius shot Steenkamp, apparently thinking she was an intruder, through the locked door of his toilet on 14 February last year.

He found her slumped over the toilet after he broke the toilet door down. She was shot in the hip, arm, and head.

The athlete is charged with the murder of Steenkamp and with contraventions of the Firearms Control Act. He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013.

On 30 September 2012 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

Pistorius has pleaded not guilty on all the charges.

SAPA