/ 11 March 2014

Witness: Pistorius should’ve heard me say the gun was loaded

Witness: Pistorius Should've Heard Me Say The Gun Was Loaded

Oscar Pistorius would have heard a friend warn him there was a bullet in the chamber of a gun he handed to the athlete, the high court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday.

"The acoustics in that restaurant are terrible, particularly at lunchtime, but because of the proximity of our heads it is impossible that he could not have heard me say the gun was 'one up'," Darren Fresco replied to questioning from Barry Roux, SC for Pistorius.

"One up" means there is a bullet in the chamber.

Fresco was testifying about a shot that went off from his Glock pistol after he passed it under a table to Pistorius at Tasha's restaurant in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, in January 2013.

Boxer Kevin Lerena and a British sprinter were with Pistorius and Fresco at the time.

The gun fired and a bullet went into the tiled floor under the table.

Fresco and Pistorius were sitting diagonally across from one another and leaned towards each other as the gun was passed.

Shot through open sunroof 
Court was adjourned for 10 minutes owing to a problem with the recording equipment.

Pistorius is accused of the murder of model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp on February 14 last year.

He is also charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, and two counts of discharging a firearm in public.

In September 2010, he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

Earlier, Fresco was silent in his statement on Pistorius seeking to shift blame for a shot fired in a Johannesburg restaurant.

Lerena testified last week that a gun went off by accident when it was being passed between the friends at the restaurant in Melrose Arch.

Lerena said Pistorius was holding it at the time and after it accidentally went off, he asked that someone else take the blame because it would cause "tension" in the media.

Alleged blame shifting
Fresco conceded that he had consulted lawyers before he made his statement, saying he did not want to get into trouble.

But he could not explain why he left out the alleged blame shifting.

Roux said it would have been easy to put in the statement that Pistorius wanted to shift the blame.

"I can't give you a reason for that," he said, occasionally swivelling in the court chair as Roux cross-examined him.

He said he did tell his counsel about this. – Sapa