On Tuesday, the defense team of embattled South African track star Oscar Pistorious has rested its case, bringing to an end the latest phase of the athlete's trial for the fatal shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Judge Thokozile Masipa has also ordered for closing arguments to take place on August 7, CNN said. Citing its in-house legal analyst Kelly Phelps, the judge decided to give each of the prosecution and the defense time for them to review the transcript of the case, of which is believed to be as much as 4,000 pages long and covering a case that ran from March 3 to July 8, which is a total of 39 days.
In his defense, Pistorious has since admitted to firing the bullets that killed his model girlfriend. The 27 year-old added that he had mistaken his 29 year-old law graduate beau as an intruder. Prosecutors has since attempted to shut down the athlete's argument, and told in court that the two had an argument that had turned nasty.
After the closing arguments, CNN said that the judge will be deciding whether the Paralympian had genuinely made a mistake in killing her or had deliberately shot his girlfriend to death. Should Masipa chose to believe that the shooting was intentional, Pistorius, who will be then found guilty of murder, will be sentenced to a prison term. Pistorius might be getting a minimum of 15 years to life for his fatal shooting of Steenkamp. The news outlet noted that South Africa does not have the death penalty or capital punishment.
On the other hand, Pistorious could be found guilty of culpable homicide or acquit him altogether, Phelps said. The sentence terms of culpable homicide would be at the judge's discretion.
Earlier, Australian Channel Seven had shown footage of Pistorius recounting the moments that he had shot Steenkamp on camera. Believed to be coming from the evidence files, the defense team has since touted that the acquisition of the video was illegal, of which the news organization has since denied.
