The final witness was due to appear at Oscar Pistorius’ sentencing hearing yesterday as the athlete awaits a new jail term for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp three years ago.
Steenkamp’s father broke down in court on Tuesday as he said Pistorius must “pay for his crime” of shooting his daughter three years ago.
It was the first time that 73-year-old Barry Steenkamp had testified in court and directly addressed the double-amputee Olympic sprinter.
Photo: AFP
Pistorius killed Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine’s Day in 2013, saying he mistook her for a burglar when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.
In March, Pistorius’ lawyers lost an appeal judgement that upgraded his original conviction from culpable homicide — the equivalent of manslaughter — to murder.
“It has been very difficult for me to forgive... I feel that Oscar has to pay for what he did. He has to pay for his crime,” Barry Steenkamp said, tears streaming down his face.
Reliving how his daughter, 29, died, Steenkamp said: “What she must have gone through in those split seconds — she must have been in so much fear and pain.”
Pistorius held his head in his hands and sobbed during the testimony on Tuesday in the High Court in Pretoria, the South African capital.
Barry Steenkamp, a former racehorse trainer, also described the chaos and panic when his wife June rang him at work early in the morning after Reeva, a model and law graduate, was shot.
“June grieves like I do, all the time. I hear her at night, I hear her crying, I hear her talking to Reeva,” he added, saying that June had tried to forgive Pistorius to help her cope with the loss of her daughter.
The identity of the final state witness to appear yesterday was not known.
The original trial judge Thokozile Masipa is due to hand down a new sentence for murder after arguments from both prosecution and defense were completed by the end of yesterday.
Today is a national holiday in South Africa, and the sentence could be given tomorrow — with Pistorius facing an immediate return to jail.
The minimum jail term for murder is 15 years, but his sentence may be reduced due to time already spent in prison and mitigating factors, including his disability.
Pistorius was released from jail in October last year to live under house arrest at his uncle’s mansion in Pretoria after serving one year of his five-year sentence for culpable homicide.
On Tuesday, prison nurse Charlotte Mashabane told the court that Pistorius had been a difficult inmate and had argued with officials, shouting and banging her desk in a dispute over medication.
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