14 DAY TRIAL // With the eyes of the world firmly fixed on the trial of South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, it's hard to sit through the entire process and sift fact from fiction. There has been a lot of speculation in this famous case, but it's all winding down today as judge Thokozile Masipa will speak the final verdict.
The trial is being streamed live on the internet from the courtroom and the world watches eagerly to see if Pistorius is going to get charged with murder or he's going to be let off the hook in the case of the killing of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Pistorius maintains his innocence, the judge tends to agree
Throughout the trial, Pistorius has stated that the did not mean to kill his girlfriend, with whom he'd just had an argument, but that he believed he was shooting at an intruder in his home. Regardless of what he thought, he managed to kill Reeva with four shots fired through the closed bathroom door.
Prosecutors have claimed that he killed Reeva in a fit of rage, but the judge has since dismissed this theory by claiming that Pistorius seemed genuinely distraught, and as soon as he found out he had shot his girlfriend, he called the police and the ambulance.
The judge dismissed the witness accounts as unreliable
Accounts from witnesses were dismissed by Masipa, claiming that they were not reliable, since almost all the people involved in the case had had time to form an opinion about the case and also be influenced by what they saw in the media. She points out that none of the witnesses told the same story.
She has also maintained that even if the accused showed intention to shoot (he never denied firing his weapon) that doesn't mean he had any intention to kill. However, she also added that the witness (Pistorius) has been “evasive” and failed to give straightforward answers.
From the sound of things, Masipa won't be convicting Oscar Pistorius of the gravest charge, that of premeditated murder which brings with it a 25 to life sentence. The case then moved on to the other possible conclusion to the case: murder and culpable homicide.
The judge points out that firing a weapon doesn't necessarily show intent to kill
In her opinion, the judge truly believed Oscar's version that he thought he was shooting at an intruder and not at his girlfriend, whom he still thought in bed. Before the trial broke for lunch, Masipa declared that the accused is not guilty of murder, the second gravest charge of the case.
The trial has now been interrupted by a lunch break, but Pistorius could be seen crying in the box, as he seemed to be completely shattered since this morning when he was brought into the courtroom.
The trial is still ongoing, and can be watched live below.
