Oscar Pistorius: Will One of The Most Hyped Murder Trials in History Be Fair?

Oscar Pistorius in court today

"The Oscar Pistorius court case has all the elements of a Hollywood drama.....A superstar sporting hero, a beautiful victim, a glamorous lifestyle and, on Valentine's Day – a dramatic killing. But this wasn't fiction. It was fact."

The cameras were rolling, the families were hushed and the A-list accused, Oscar Pistorius, had brought a cushion to the hard bench of the dock in the expansive wood-panelled courtroom. South Africa's eagerly awaited "trial of the century" was about to start – but one person was missing.
A court interpreter required to translate witness testimony had taken one look at the massed ranks of lawyers and photographers, and the amount of global news networks' tents, satellite vans, and the camera drone hovering above the entrance, and had run away, quitting the case in an "emotional" state, officials said later. This caused about 90mins delay.

Throughout the day Pistorius wrote copious longhand notes in an A4 pad, occasionally handing messages to his defence team. Facing the mother of the woman he killed for the first time, he apparently never caught her eye.

When a replacement interpreter had been found and proceedings began at 11.30am, prosecutor Gerrie Nel read the charge that Pistorius unlawfully and intentionally did kill his girlfriend, the model Reeva Steenkamp. Asked by the judge, Thokozile Masipa, how he pleaded, Pistorius rose and replied softly: "Not guilty, my lady."

Judging that attack is the best form of defence, Pistorius's lawyer read a statement that accused the prosecution of using inadmissible evidence to "engineer an assassination of my character". Pistorius insisted again that he had shot 29-year-old Steenkamp through the locked toilet door of his home believing she was an intruder.

"What happened was a tragic accident," he said. "We were in a loving relationship. There was no argument. The allegation I wanted to shoot or kill Reeva could not be further from the truth."
Nel conceded there were no eyewitnesses to the murder and the state's case is based on "circumstantial evidence". He called the first of 107 witnesses, university lecturer Michelle Burger, a neighbour whom, the court was told, lived 177 metres from Pistorius in their luxury gated community in Pretoria. Speaking in the Afrikaans language, she told how she and her husband had been woken at about 3am on Valentine's day last year by screams.
"I was still sitting in the bed and I heard her screams," she said. "She screamed terribly and she yelled for help. Then I also heard a man screaming for help. Three times he yelled for help. Just after her screams, I heard four shots. Four gunshots ...

There were occasional glimpses of wider South African context. Burger (the witness) said she had assumed at the time she was overhearing a burglary. Asked if it was possible that she had heard the sound of Pistorius smashing down the bathroom door and confused it with gunshots, Burger replied that she and most people in the courtroom could recognise gunshots.

Pistorius, who faces life in jail if convicted, showed little emotion as he watched and listened to the witness. His family and that of Steenkamp sat on the same row in the crowded courtroom but did not interact. Steenkamp's mother, June, wearing black, stared at Pistorius coldly for long moments. Members of the Pistorius family, however, were sufficiently relaxed to turn and chat with journalists sitting on the row behind, and relaxed at lunchtime in the canteen.

Then Pistorius left the building and was driven away, hotly pursued by a chaotic rain-soaked crowd.

Oscar Pistorius at the London 2012 Olympics

Reeva Steenkamp (the deceased)