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| Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius stands inside the court as a police officer looks on during his bail hearing at the magistrate court in Pretoria, South Africa, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013. A South African judge says defense lawyers will need to offer "exceptional" reasons to convince him to grant bail for Oscar Pistorius, when a hearing resumes Wednesday. |
PRETORIA, South
Africa (AP) -- The prosecution case against Oscar Pistorius began to
unravel Wednesday with revelations of a series of police blunders and
the lead investigator's admission that authorities have no evidence
challenging the double-amputee Olympian's claim he killed his girlfriend
accidentally.
Detective Hilton Botha's often
confused testimony left prosecutors rubbing their heads in frustration
as he misjudged distances and said testosterone - banned for
professional athletes in some cases - was found at the scene, only to be
later contradicted by the prosecutor's office.
The
second day of what was supposed to be a mere bail hearing almost
resembled a full-blown trial for the 26-year-old runner, with his
lawyer, Barry Roux, tearing into Botha's testimony step by step during
cross examination.
Police, Botha acknowledged,
left a 9 mm slug from the barrage that killed Reeva Steenkamp inside a
toilet and lost track of illegal ammunition found inside the house. And
the detective himself walked through the crime scene without wearing
protective shoe covers, potentially contaminating the area.
Authorities,
Roux asserted, were selectively taking "every piece of evidence to try
to extract the most possibly negative connotation and present it to the
court."
The case has riveted South Africa,
with journalists and the curious crowding into the brick-walled
courtroom where Pistorius, dubbed the Blade Runner for his prosthetic
legs, faces a charge of premeditated murder in the Valentine's Day
slaying.
Pistorius says he mistook Steenkamp
for an intruder and shot her out of fear, while prosecutors say he
planned the killing and attacked her as she cowered behind a locked
bathroom door.
The day seemed to start out
well for the prosecution, with Botha offering new details of the
shooting that appeared to call into question Pistorius' account of the
moments leading up to the 29-year-old model's death.
Ballistic
evidence, he said, showed the bullets that killed her had been fired
from a height, supporting the prosecution's assertion that Pistorius was
wearing prosthetic legs when he took aim at the bathroom door.
The
athlete has maintained he was standing only on his stumps, and felt
vulnerable and frightened as he opened fire from a low position.
Projecting
a diagram of the bedroom and bathroom, prosecutor Gerrie Nel said it
showed Pistorius had to walk past his bed to get to bathroom and could
not have done so without seeing that Steenkamp was not asleep there.
"There's
no other way of getting there," Nel said in disputing Pistorius' claim
that he had no idea Steenkamp was no longer in bed when he pumped four
bullets into the bathroom door, striking her with three.
Botha
backed the prosecutor up, saying the holster for Pistorius' 9 mm pistol
was found under the left side of the bed, where Steenkamp slept, and it
would have been impossible for Pistorius to get the gun without
checking to see if she was there.
"I believe that he knew that Reeva was in the bathroom and he shot four shots through the door," the detective said.
Botha
described how bullets struck Steenkamp in the head and shattered her
right arm and hip, eliciting sobs from Pistorius, who held his head in
hands.
However, when asked if Steenkamp's body
showed "any pattern of defensive wounds" or bruising from an assault,
Botha said "no." He again responded "no" when asked if investigators
found anything inconsistent with Pistorius' version of events, though he
later said nothing contradicted the police version either.
Testimony
began with the prosecutor telling the court that before the shooting, a
neighbor heard "nonstop" shouting between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. at
Pistorius' upscale home in a gated community in the capital, Pretoria.
However,
Botha later said under cross examination that the witness was in a
house 600 yards (meters) away, possibly out of earshot. He cut that
estimate in half when questioned again by the prosecutor, as confusion
reigned for much of his testimony.
At one
point, Botha told the court that police found syringes and two boxes of
testosterone in Pistorius' bedroom - testimony the prosecution later
withdrew, saying it was too early to identify the substance, which was
still being tested.
"It is not certain (what
it is) until the forensics" are completed, Medupe Simasiku, a spokesman
for South Africa's National Prosecution Agency, told The Associated
Press. It's not clear if it was "a legal or an illegal medication for
now."
The defense also disputed the claim. "It is an herbal remedy," Roux said. "It is not ... a banned substance."
Still,
Botha offered potentially damaging details about Pistorius' past,
saying the athlete was once involved in an accidental shooting at a
restaurant in Johannesburg and asked someone else "to take the wrap."
The runner also threatened men on two separate occasions, Botha said, allegedly telling one he'd "break his legs."
The
detective said police found two iPhones in Pistorius' bathroom and two
BlackBerrys in his bedroom, and none had been used to phone for help.
Guards at the gated community did call the athlete, Botha said, and all
he said was: "I'm all right," as he wept uncontrollably.
Roux later suggested that a fifth phone, not collected by the police, was used by Pistorius to call for help.
The
question now is whether Botha's troubled testimony will be enough to
convince Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair to keep Pistorius in prison until
trial. While Pistorius faces the harshest bail requirements under South
African law, the magistrate has said he would consider loosening them
based on testimony in the hearing. Final arguments were scheduled for
Thursday.
