Pistorius breaks down in court
Pretoria – South African ‘‘Blade Runner’’ Oscar Pistorius was in tears last night after being formally charged in a Pretoria court with the murder of his girlfriend.
Dressed in a dark suit, the 26-year-old double amputee Olympic and Paralympic superstar, stood with head bowed in front of magistrate Desmond Nair to hear the charge of one count of murder read out.
He then started sobbing, covering his face with his hands.
‘‘Take it easy. Come take a seat,’’ Nair told him.
South African prosecutors said they would argue that Pistorius committed premeditated murder.
The magistrate postponed the hearing to February 19, and ordered that Pistorius remain in custody.
The downfall of the track superstar has stunned a nation that reveres ‘‘the fastest man on no legs’’ as a hero who triumphed over adversity to compete with able-bodied athletes at the highest levels of sport.
His girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, 30, was found shot dead in his plush Pretoria home in the early hours of Thursday (South African time), police said. The Afrikaans-language Beeld newspaper said she had been hit four times, in the head, chest, pelvis and hand.
‘‘The security guards found Pistorius by Steenkamp’s body in the bathroom,’’ the paper said on its website, citing a neighbour. ‘‘The door had bullet holes right through it.’’
Early reports of the shooting suggested Pistorius may have mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder, but police said neighbours had heard noises before the shots and that there had been previous ‘‘domestic’’ incidents at the house.
Pistorius was held overnight in a Pretoria police station. Yesterday, he was led, flanked by family members and officers, to a police station wagon to be taken to the capital’s court.
The hearing was delayed for two hours as his defence lawyers objected to the scrum of local and international reporters packed into the courtroom.
South African newspapers plastered the killing across their front pages, relegating a State of the Nation address by President Jacob Zuma in Parliament to a distant second.
The coverage reflected shock and dismay at the fall of a sporting legend who commanded rare respect on all sides of South Africa’s racial divides.
‘‘Golden Boy Loses Shine’’ ran a front page headline in the Sowetan, beside a picture of Pistorius, head bowed in a grey hooded tracksuit, being led away from a police station.
Callers to morning radio shows expressed remorse at the death of Steenkamp, who had been due to give a talk at a Johannesburg school this week about violence against women.
There was also widespread disbelief at the fate of a sportsman regarded as a genuinely ‘‘good guy’’.
‘‘How is it possible for one so high to fall so low so quickly?’’ Talk Radio 702 host John Robbie asked.
A 9mm pistol was recovered from Pistorius’s modern twostorey house in the middle of a heavily guarded gated complex in the northern outskirts of the South African capital.
He underwent medical and forensic examinations, police said.
‘‘He is doing well but very emotional’’ his lawyer, Kenny Oldwage, told SABC TV, but gave no further comment.
South Africa’s M-Net cable TV channel immediately pulled adverts featuring Pistorius off air but most of his sponsors, including sports apparel group Nike, said they would not make any decisions until the police investigation was completed.
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