Forensic tests carried out by an expert for Oscar Pistorius’ murder trial are being rigorously challenged by the state prosecutor in South Africa.<\/p>\n
Roger Dixon’s sequence for the shots that killed the athlete’s girlfriend contradict that of a police ballistics witness and pathologist.<\/p>\n
Mr Pistorius denies intentionally killing Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine’s Day last year.<\/p>\n
He says he fired in fear at a toilet door, mistaking her for an intruder.<\/p>\n
The prosecution says the 29-year-old model and law graduate was deliberately killed after the couple had an argument.<\/p>\n
The double amputee Olympic and Paralympic athlete faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of premeditated murder.<\/p>\n
This is the last day of the trial before a break in the proceedings until Monday 5 May.<\/p>\n
‘Not entertainment place’<\/strong><\/p>\n Before the questioning got under way on Thursday, Judge Thokozile Masipa warned those watching the televised proceedings in an overflow court next door about their “unruly” behaviour.<\/p>\n She said she had been made aware that there had been shouting and cheering at times.<\/p>\n “It is not an entertainment place,” she said.<\/p>\n The prosecutor Gerrie Nel continued his cross examination of Mr Dixon, a defence witness, who says he believes Ms Steenkamp was standing at an angle to the door and that all four bullets hit her as fell to the ground.<\/p>\n Earlier in the trial, ballistics expert Captain Christiaan Mangena said he believed Ms Steenkamp was standing up facing the closed door when she was hit in the right hip.<\/p>\n He said she then fell back onto a magazine rack next to the toilet before three more bullets were fired at the door, one of which missed her.<\/p>\n The BBC’s Pumza Fihlani in court says Mr Dixon’s testimony challenges the state’s version that Ms Steenkamp would have had time to scream after the first bullet and that Mr Pistorius then changed aim and continued firing.<\/p>\n Mr Dixon also told the court about light tests carried out in Mr Pistorius’ bedroom and sound tests of a cricket bat striking a door and bullets hitting a door.<\/p>\n But Mr Nel has sought to cast doubt on Mr Dixon’s credibility and qualifications as a forensics witness.<\/p>\n Mr Dixon is a geologist and university lecturer who worked as head of materials analysis at a police forensic laboratory in Pretoria for 18 years until 2012 and repeatedly said he was not a ballistics expert.<\/p>\n Mr Nel also sought to prove that he was out of his depth when he was testifying about marks on Ms Steenkamp’s body.<\/p>\n He had identified one as a bruise which other pathologists had not, Mr Nel said.<\/p>\n At one stage Mr Dixon used the phrase “in my layman’s understanding”.<\/p>\n “Now you call yourself a layman. You see how irresponsible it is to make inferences that aren’t in your area of expertise,” Mr Nel replied on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Mr Dixon took the stand on Tuesday after seven days of testimony from the sprinter came to an end with him reading a Valentine’s Day card from his girlfriend.<\/p>\n If Mr Pistorius is acquitted of murder, the court must consider an alternative charge of culpable homicide, for which he could receive about 15 years in prison.<\/p>\n He also faces charges of illegally firing a gun in public and of illegally possessing ammunition, both of which he denies.<\/p>\n There are no juries at trials in South Africa, and his fate will be decided by the judge, assisted by two assessors.<\/p>\n Mr Pistorius is known as the “Blade Runner” because of the carbon-fibre prosthetics he uses on the track.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Forensic tests carried out by an expert for Oscar Pistorius’ murder trial are being rigorously challenged by the state prosecutor in South Africa. Roger Dixon’s sequence for the shots that killed the athlete’s girlfriend contradict that of a police ballistics witness and pathologist. Mr Pistorius denies intentionally killing Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":14124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-14123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}