AP
'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius awaits the start of court proceedings in the Pretoria Magistrates court in South Africa. He was charged with premeditated murder in his girlfriend's death.
PRETORIA, South Africa — Olympian Oscar Pistorius fired into the door of a small bathroom where his girlfriend was cowering after a shouting match on Valentine's Day, hitting her three times, a South African prosecutor said Tuesday as he charged the sports icon with premeditated murder.
Pistorius sobbed softly he told a packed courtroom Tuesday that he shot his girlfriend to death by mistake, thinking she was a robber.
The double amputee said in an affidavit read by his lawyer at his bail hearing that he felt vulnerable because he did not have on his prosthetic legs when he pumped bullets into the locked bathroom door. Then, Pistorius said in the sworn statement, he realized that model Reeva Steenkamp was not in his bed.
"It filled me with horror and fear," he said.
He put on his prosthetic legs, tried to kick down the door, then bashed it in with a cricket bat to find Steenkamp, 29, shot inside. He said he ran downstairs with her, but "She died in my arms."
Prosecutor Gerrie Nel on Tuesday charged the 26-year-old athlete and Olympian with premeditated murder, alleging he took the time to put on his legs and walk some seven meters (yards) from the bed to the bathroom door before opening fire. A conviction of premeditated murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in jail.
"She couldn't go anywhere. You can run nowhere," Nel said at a bail hearing. "It must have been horrific."
At the court, Nel said the killing was premeditated because Pistorius had planned to say that he thought he was shooting an intruder, and had told that story to his sister, Aimee.
"It was all part of the preplanning. Why would a burglar lock himself inside the bathroom?" Nel said.
The Valentine's Day shooting death has shocked South Africans and many around the world who idolized Pistorius for overcoming adversity to become a sports champion, competing in the London Olympics last year in track besides being a Paralympian. Steenkamp was a model and law graduate who made her debut on a South African reality TV program that was broadcast on Saturday, two days after her death.
The magistrate ruled that Pistorius faces the harshest bail requirements available in South African law.
AP
A woman holds a photo of Reeva Steenkamp, as she leaves her funeral in Port Elizabeth Tuesday.
Nel told the court that Pistorius fired into the door of a small bathroom where Steenkamp was cowering after a shouting match. He fired four times and three bullets hit Steenkamp, the prosecutor said.
"Was it to kill her, or was it to get her out?" defense attorney Barry Roux asked about the broken-down door. "We submit it is not even murder. There is no concession this is a murder."
He said the state had provided no evidence that the couple quarreled nor offered a motive.
Nel rebutted: "The motive is 'I want to kill.'"
Roux, in arguing that Pistorius should be freed on bail, he said there were no other charges outstanding against the double-amputee who last year became the first double-amputee track athlete to run at the Olympics.
Legal experts say it could take months for the case to be tried.
Pistorius, in a gray suit and tie, nodded after the chief magistrate asked if he was well. And he nodded his appreciation when his brother, Carl, pressed his shoulder in support. Journalists jammed into the courtroom, which was full with almost 100 people, including Pistorius' father, Henke, and sister Aimee.
In an email to The Associated Press on Monday, Pistorius' longtime track coach — who was yet to comment — said he believes the killing was an accident.
"I pray that we can all, in time, come through this challenging situation following the accident and I am looking forward to the day I can get my boy back on the track," Ampie Louw wrote in his statement. "I am still in shock following the heart-breaking events that occurred last week and my thoughts and prayers are with both of the families involved."
As details emerged at the dramatic court hearing in the capital, Steenkamp's body was being cremated Tuesday at a memorial service in the south-coast port city of Port Elizabeth. The family said members had arrived from around the world. Six pallbearers carried her coffin, draped with a white cloth and covered in white flowers, into the church for the private service.
June Steenkamp, the mother, said the family wants answers.
"Why? Why my little girl? Why did this happen? Why did he do this?" she said in an interview published Monday in The Times newspaper.
Pistorius was born without fibula bones and had them amputated when he was 11 months old.
The man known as the Blade Runner because of his running prostheses last year became the first double-amputee track athlete to run at the Olympics.
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