{"id":56365,"date":"2014-10-14T15:40:58","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T15:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=56365"},"modified":"2014-10-14T15:40:58","modified_gmt":"2014-10-14T15:40:58","slug":"oscar-pistorius-trial-athlete-would-be-vulnerable-in-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=56365","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Pistorius trial: Athlete would be ‘vulnerable in jail’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar Pistorius would be at risk of attack in South Africa’s violent jails, a defence witness has told the court on the second day of his sentence hearing.<\/p>\n

Probation officer Annette Vergeer said the Paralympian would be particularly at risk as a double amputee.<\/p>\n

The prosecution described earlier defence calls for a community service sentence as “shockingly inappropriate”.<\/p>\n

[contextly_sidebar id=”SzRuhl0X5u8UVTFe9kNpdoUJi80UC7sl”]Pistorius has been found guilty of the culpable homicide of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, but cleared of murder.<\/p>\n

The defence is trying to show prison would be an inappropriate punishment.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday Ms Vergeer – who was paid to work for the defence – said that without legs Pistorius would be “a lot more vulnerable than the normal man”.<\/p>\n

She added that she had recently handled the case of an inmate who had been sexually assaulted in prison. “How can we say that he won’t be exposed to that?”<\/p>\n

The athlete, she said, would “only deteriorate” in prison. “There is also no facility to cater for the accused’s disability.”<\/p>\n

\"Prosecutor<\/div>\n
Gerrie Nel’s aggressive style has been a hallmark of the trial<\/div>\n

During cross-examination, prosecutor Gerrie Nel suggested Ms Vergeer’s claims about conditions in South African prisons were exaggerated as she had rarely visited them.<\/p>\n

On Monday, he was angered by a call by another defence witness for the sentence to be house arrest and community service. Mr Nel labelled this a “shockingly inappropriate” punishment.<\/p>\n

Pistorius faces up to 15 years in jail, although Judge Thokozile Masipa – who has been presiding over the trial in Pretoria – may suspend the sentence or impose a fine.<\/p>\n

She said the athlete had acted negligently when he shot his girlfriend through a toilet door, but had genuinely thought her to be an intruder.<\/p>\n

The sentencing hearing is expected to last several days.<\/p>\n

Honorary doctorate<\/p>\n

Early on Tuesday, the proceedings centred on Pistorius’ charity work.<\/p>\n

Cross-examining one of the athlete’s managers, Peet Van Zyl, Mr Nel tried to show that the athlete’s honorary doctorate from the UK’s Strathclyde University was not for his charitable activities.<\/p>\n

He suggested to Mr Van Zyl that sportsmen often took on such work for pragmatic reasons.<\/p>\n

\n

In 60 seconds: Key developments in the trial of Oscar Pistorius<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Later the prosecutor questioned whether Pistorius had used his own funds to pay for prosthetics for disadvantaged young people.<\/p>\n

However, Mr Van Zyl insisted that the athlete had asked for his speaking fees to be paid not to himself but to charity.<\/p>\n

Defence counsel Barry Roux then continued the line of questioning about Pistorius’s motivation for his charity work.<\/p>\n

The athlete’s manager said that while he had contractual obligations to his sponsors, he “went the extra mile” for disabled children.<\/p>\n

The BBC’s Andrew Harding says Mr Nel has been trying to show Pistorius as a self-interested, corporate client rather than a selfless volunteer.<\/p>\n

The Paralympic sprinter denies murdering Ms Steenkamp after a row on Valentine’s Day last year, saying he shot her by mistake.<\/p>\n

Ms Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and law graduate, was hit three times by bullets shot through a toilet door by Pistorius at his home in the capital, Pretoria.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oscar Pistorius would be at risk of attack in South Africa’s violent jails, a defence witness has told the court on the second day of his sentence hearing. Probation officer Annette Vergeer said the Paralympian would be particularly at risk as a double amputee. The prosecution described earlier defence calls for a community service sentence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":46585,"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-56365","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\/56365","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=56365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}