Oscar Pistorius: a runaway interpreter, then the trial of the century begins

By: mimi kiinichahabri on 16:18

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Olympic and Paralympic track star Oscar Pistorius sits in the dock during his trial for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Photograph: Reuters

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 melee 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.

Link to video: Oscar Pistorius trial: witness heard 'blood-curdling screams' - audio

It caused a 90-minute delay and was a measure of how this was a day, and a trial, unlike anything Africa has seen before. A disabled sporting Icarus, a blond reality TV star and, on the first day alone, descriptions of "bloodcurdling screams" have been deemed worthy of a dedicated 24-hour TV channel in South Africa. In some ways it is reminiscent of sensational murder trials that thrilled newspaper readers in Victorian Britain or jazz-age Chicago. Only here the banks of reporters in the courthouse are not scribbling in notebooks but tweeting on laptops.

Pistorius alone, perhaps, is accustomed to the daunting glare after winning the admiration of millions in the Paralympics and Olympics as the "blade runner" on his prosthetic limbs. On the biggest day of his life there was no sign of the broken, haunted figure who shook and sobbed uncontrollably in the dock at last year's bail hearings.

Instead, the 27-year-old, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and black tie, looked composed and businesslike as he entered court D at the North Gauteng high court in Pretoria carrying a briefcase. The court artist, a man with a pony-tail, gave him a sympathetic hug and elicited a smile.

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 ... bang bang, bang, bang.

"It was very traumatic for me. You could hear that it was bloodcurdling screams. You can't translate it into words. The anxiousness in her voice, and fear. It leaves you cold to hear that angst, that fear." She added: "I heard petrified screaming before the gunshots, and just after the gunshots."

The evidence challenged Pistorius's account because the athlete has said he thought Steenkamp was in bed, and did not describe any woman screaming.

It was the kind of moment for Barry Roux, Pistorius's defence counsel, to step up and prove himself a worthy heir to Johnnie Cochran, the fierce and flamboyant lawyer who captivated the US in his defence of another sporting celebrity, OJ Simpson. In the absence of a jury – there has been no jury system in South Africa since 1969 – But Roux's job was to make his case to Masipa, a former crime reporter presiding with two assessors, who was a mostly quiet and understated presence.

Roux memorably demolished the lead detective in the case during last year's bail hearings. But Burger was an altogether more formidable opponent. It transpired that the replacement interpreter was not quite up to the job, so Burger switched her testimony to English, and seemed to grow in confidence over time. "I couldn't understand why Mr Pistorius didn't hear the screams of the woman and if he didn't hear the screams of the woman that's a question that needs to be asked to Mr Pistorius," the star witness said. "Because of the climax of her shouts, I knew something terrible was happening in that house. You only shout like that if your life is really threatened."

Roux asked if it was possible Pistorius's distressed voice might have sounded like a woman. Burger insisted that she had heard two separate people, a man and a woman.

There were occasional glimpses of wider South African context. Burger 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.

For the first time in South Africa, parts of a trial are being televised live, although Burger's testimony was only relayed in audio. Small CCTV-style cameras could be seen in corners of the courtroom.

Pistorius shared a hug with his brother, Carl, who earlier had tweeted "You can only come to the morning through the shadows" – words spoken by Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. Then Pistorius left the building and was driven away, hotly pursued by a chaotic rain-soaked crowd, and the first of many long nights of studio punditry began with barely disguised glee.