PRETORIA, South Africa —Oscar Pistorius came under intense pressure Monday at his murder trial from the chief prosecutor, who dismissed his account of how he killed girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp as a flimsy web of lies and accused the Olympian of staging emotional outbursts to mask difficulty in answering a barrage of probing questions.
His voice quavering at times, Pistorius struggled to explain alleged inconsistencies in his testimony and broke down sobbing on two occasions, forcing Judge Thokozile Masipa to temporarily halt proceedings.
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Prosecutor Gerrie Nel was sometimes quick to acknowledge Pistorius’ distress – possibly to allow him time to recover and avoid any defense argument that he is not getting a fair trial – but also said the athlete was frantically trying to shore up a fabricated story.
“You’re getting frustrated because your version is improbable,” Nel said, standing at a lectern and gesturing with his spectacles in his right hand. “You’re not using your emotional state as an escape, are you?”
Pistorius said he wasn’t in a “rational frame of mind” at the time of the shooting in his home in the early hours of Feb. 14, 2013, suggesting he was therefore unable to remember some things about that night or explain some of his actions, such as rushing around with a cocked gun after he killed Steenkamp.
The cross-examination, which resumes for a fifth day Tuesday, is at a pivotal stage in a trial watched on television around the world by viewers who had admired the double-amputee runner for his track achievements. Once a role model with lucrative sponsorship deals, Pistorius is now a suspect in a witness box, challenged by an accuser in a black robe.
Pistorius faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of premeditated murder, and Nel’s challenge is to prove the state’s case beyond a reasonable doubt. Meticulously, he has sought to pick apart the runner’s account, exposing what he describes as a pattern of improbabilities that, taken as a whole, prove Pistorius is lying when he says he mistakenly shot Steenkamp through the closed door of a toilet cubicle because he feared an intruder was inside.
Nel, who alleges that Pistorius killed his lover after an argument, noted that the athlete earlier said he whispered to Steenkamp to call police about an intruder, contradicting later testimony that he warned her in a “low tone.” The prosecutor also said blood spatter evidence indicated that the athlete’s statement about a duvet in the bedroom was false. Pistorius has said the duvet was on the bed, and that police photographs of the bed cover on the floor suggest that police moved it there after the shooting.
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