Oscar Pistorius case to be decided this week

Did he know his girlfriend, law graduate and model Reeva Steenkamp, was behind his toilet door when he fired four shots into it?
Did he intend to kill her in the early hours of Valentine’s Day last year after an argument or did he genuinely believe the person behind the door was an intruder and, vulnerable without his prosthetic legs, acted reasonably in blasting through the door?
Was it a reflexive action from a man who has suffered the “slow burn” of a lifetime of disability?
These questions will be answered this week when the dramatic and sensational trial of Oscar Pistorius, the lauded South African ‘Blade Runner’, comes to its conclusion.
The 27-year-old will learn his fate on Thursday or Friday in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria - whether he goes to jail for life, for a long time or whether he goes free, convincing the court that he had no intention of ending the life of his girlfriend, who was slumped over a toilet bowl in his home and that his actions in pulling that trigger were reasonable.
Holding his fate in her hands is 66-year-old Judge Thokozile MatildaMasipa,

the no-nonsense former social worker and newspaper journalist who was only the second black woman appointed to the High Court.
Pistorius’s trial, which began in March this year, was presided over by judge alone as South Africa does not have a jury system. Throughout Judge Masipa has given away little in terms of her thinking and analysts are not sure which way it will go.

Several witnesses were unreliable: both lawyers questioned the reliability of certain witnesses. Nel picked apart Pistorius’s testimony. Roux demonstrated that one of Pistorius’s neighbours, state witness Dr Johan Stipp, gave an wrong account.
Still undetermined: whether Pistorius acted reasonably. Ultimately, the judge will decide.
“He cannot escape a verdict of murder,” said Nel. “If you fire four shots into a small cubicle with Black Talon ammunition you see the possibility that you will kill somebody.” But the defense insists that Pistorius acted reasonably, especially for a man who was vulnerable without his legs, fearful of violent crime and with a propensity to choose fight over flight because of his inability to run away.