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Pretoria / AFP
A sobbing Oscar Pistorius walked hesitantly on his stumps around court Wednesday in a dramatic demonstration of his disability ahead of his sentencing for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Wearing shorts, the double-amputee removed his prosthetic limbs at the request of his lawyer Barry Roux as he made a final plea for Pistorius, who faces 15 years in jail.
The Paralympic athlete held onto wooden benches for support as he hobbled in front of the judge, and appeared in distress as a cushion was provided for him to rest on.
Roux and state lawyer Gerrie Nel set out their concluding arguments at the High Court in Pretoria, three years after Steenkamp’s death.
Pistorius, 29, shot his girlfriend in the early hours of Valentine’s Day in 2013, claiming he mistook her for a burglar when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.
“It is three o’clock in the morning, it is dark, he is on his stumps,” Roux said, stressing his client’s vulnerability.
“His balance is seriously compromised and… he would not be able to defend himself. He was anxious, he was frightened.
“His perception that he and the deceased were in danger was fortified by finding the open bathroom window. He believed the person in the toilet was an intruder and deceased was at the time in the bed,” Roux said.
In March, the Supreme Court of Appeal found Pistorius guilty of murder — irrespective of who was behind the door when he opened fire with a pistol he kept under his bed.
The standard jail term for murder in South Africa is 15 years, but Pistorius’s sentence may be reduced due to the year he has already spent in prison and mitigating factors, including his disability.
Murder conviction
Roux urged judge Thokozile Masipa to “entertain the correct facts and not to be drowned by the many perceptions” whirling around the case that attracted years of intense public scrutiny.