{"id":161,"date":"2017-11-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/china.chinaacheru.com\/wp\/2017\/11\/06\/oscar-pistorius-reeva-wouldnt-want-me-to-waste-my-life-behind-bars\/"},"modified":"2017-11-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-11-06T00:00:00","slug":"oscar-pistorius-reeva-wouldnt-want-me-to-waste-my-life-behind-bars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/oscar-pistorius-reeva-wouldnt-want-me-to-waste-my-life-behind-bars\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Pistorius: Reeva wouldn’t want me to waste my life behind bars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t<\/span>\"Picture\"<\/a>Reeva Steenkamp<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

Former Paralympian tells ITV he \u2018saw the pain\u2019 he had caused by shooting Reeva Steenkamp but denies it was premeditated
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Oscar Pistorius has admitted he deserves a long jail sentence for killing Reeva Steenkamp but vehemently denied he murdered her, insisting that the 2013 shooting was not premeditated.
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In his first TV interview since his girlfriend\u2019s death, Pistorius said he \u201ccouldn\u2019t disagree\u201d with those who felt he should be punished. \u201cAt times I don\u2019t feel like I should have the right to live for taking someone else\u2019s life. What\u2019s difficult is dealing with the charge of murder,\u201d he said.
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But Pistorius said he did not want to \u201cwaste my life\u201d behind bars. \u201cIf I was afforded the opportunity of redemption I would like to help the less fortunate like I had in my past,\u201d he said. \u201cI would like to believe that if Reeva could look down upon me that she would want me to live that life.\u201d
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Pistorius made the comments during an interview with ITV, to be broadcast at 9pm on Friday. The interview \u2013 at times frank, at other points self-exculpatory, and with moments of prolonged sobbing and even howling \u2013 comes days before a South African judge will sentence Pistorius for murder.<\/p>\n

He was convicted in 2014 of manslaughter, but last year the conviction was upgraded to murder following an appeal by state prosecutors. The minimum sentence for murder in South Africa is 15 years. However, legal experts say judge Thokozile Masipa has considerable powers of discretion.
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In the interview, Pistorius \u2013 who made his name as an Olympic and Paralympic athlete, reaching the 400m semi-finals of London 2012 \u2013 stuck to the same account he has given of the shooting of Steenkamp on 14 February 2013, Valentine\u2019s Day, inside his gated home in Pretoria.
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He said Steenkamp\u2019s death was a tragic accident caused by his sincere belief that an intruder was breaking into the apartment.
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Pistorius said he arrived home just after 6pm to find Reeva \u201csmiling and giddy and just bubbly\u201d. She had cooked a romantic meal and laid the table with a candle. After, they lay down on the bed and chatted, he said, adding that \u201cwhen I came in the room I placed my firearm on the left hand side of the bed\u201d.
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Pistorius said he took his prosthetic legs off and fell asleep. It was \u201cpitch dark\u201d. At 3am he woke. \u201cI heard this noise coming from the bathroom,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a sliding noise of the window frame hitting the frame.\u201d
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He claimed he \u201cimmediately got panicked\u201d and believed that \u201csomeone was actually in the process of breaking in\u201d, possibly with a ladder.
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The athlete said he scooped up his firearm and, believing Steenkamp was still in the room, whispered to her to get down and ring the police. He said he was terrified as he walked toward the bathroom on his stumps, gun in hand.
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\u201cAll of a sudden I heard a noise, at the toilet,\u201d he said. \u201cI presumed it was the toilet door opening and before I know it I\u2019d fired four shots.\u201d
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Prosecutors have dismissed Pistorius\u2019s account as lies. They say the athlete murdered Steenkamp after a row prompted by his jealousy over an ex-boyfriend. They say she fled to the bathroom and barricaded herself in the toilet, pursued by Pistorius who first tried to smash the door down with a cricket bat and then returned with his 9mm weapon, firing into the door from point-blank range.
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Pistorius said he felt a moment of horror when he realised Steenkamp was not in the bed but then experienced a short-lived \u201csense of calm\u201d, thinking that she was hiding on the floor. He got down on the floor, however, and realised he still couldn\u2019t feel her.
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\u201cSo I start pulling everything apart and I start saying like, Reeva, Reeva Reeva, and I\u2019m like pulling my hand and I\u2019m on my stumps now still, I was like pulling my hand across the curtain \u2026 thinking like \u2018lord please tell me she\u2019s hiding behind the curtains\u2019. And I get to the end of the curtains and my heart just sinks.\u201d
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Pistorius said he looped back to the bathroom, and broke down the door to to the toilet with a cricket bat, ripping out one plank. Inside, he found Steenkamp slumped on the toilet. She was dead. There was blood everywhere, he said.
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He said he put her on the bathroom floor, placing a towel under her head. \u201cI just see blood and it\u2019s just blood everywhere … So much blood! I try and pick her up. I\u2019m trying to pick her up but there\u2019s so much blood I can\u2019t stand up.
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\u201cAnd I thought Reeva had started breathing, so I had my fingers in her mouth and I was trying to give her mouth to mouth, but there was so much blood.\u201d
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South Africa\u2019s supreme court was unimpressed by Pistorius\u2019s testimony, describing him as vacillating, untruthful and a \u201cvery poor witness\u201d. Masipa, who heard his original trial, has further described him as \u201cevasive\u201d and \u201cclearly not candid\u201d.
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The athlete told ITV he had not always been convincing while giving evidence, but blamed his performance on his long court and police ordeal. His defence team say he is suffering from anxiety and depression. At last week\u2019s sentencing hearing he walked across the courtroom floor on his stumps.
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Oscar Pistorius demonstrates walking without his prosthetic legs in court
At the same hearing, Steenkamp\u2019s father Barry said his daughter\u2019s murder had devastated their family. News of the ITV interview clearly annoyed the state prosecutor Gerry Nel, who told the court it gave the lie to the claim that the athlete was unable to testify, adding that it was \u201cdisrespectful\u201d.
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Pistorius told ITV he \u201csaw the pain\u201d he had caused and said that most of his mutual friends with Steenkamp \u201cdon\u2019t speak to me any more\u201d. One woman had spotted him shopping in Pretoria and had screamed at the store for allowing him in. He put down his basket and left, he said.
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Pistorius denied some of the allegations levelled against him, including that he had behaved violently to Steenkamp before he shot her, hitting her with a cricket bat, and that he had taken steroids. Asked whether he was violent towards women, he said: \u201cNo, not at all.\u201d
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The athlete said he owned nine to 11 firearms, and had ordered a semi-automatic assault rifle, but added that he kept only his 9mm gun at home. Asked why he needed such an arsenal, Pistorius said that like all South Africans he had direct and traumatic personal experience of violent crime.
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He said when he was growing up his father had been hijacked and beaten, and his brother hijacked, while a cousin who lived nearby was robbed at home in the middle of the day. \u201cI don\u2019t know anybody in South Africa that hasn\u2019t experienced some form of crime.\u201d The dark consequence was \u201cyou get this fear \u2026 It\u2019s just the reality we live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Culled from www.theguardian.com
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Reeva Steenkamp Former Paralympian tells ITV he \u2018saw the pain\u2019 he had caused by shooting Reeva Steenkamp but denies it was premeditated\u00a0Oscar Pistorius has admitted he deserves a long jail sentence for killing Reeva Steenkamp but vehemently denied he murdered her, insisting that the 2013 shooting was not premeditated.\u00a0In his first TV interview since his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_surecart_dashboard_logo_width":"180px","_surecart_dashboard_show_logo":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_orders":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_invoices":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_subscriptions":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_downloads":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_billing":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_account":true,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"china","author_link":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/author\/china\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Reeva Steenkamp Former Paralympian tells ITV he \u2018saw the pain\u2019 he had caused by shooting Reeva Steenkamp but denies it was premeditated\u00a0Oscar Pistorius has admitted he deserves a long jail sentence for killing Reeva Steenkamp but vehemently denied he murdered her, insisting that the 2013 shooting was not premeditated.\u00a0In his first TV interview since his…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}