Former Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius wept as he attended a third day of a sentencing hearing for the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.
The prosecution promised another “emotional testimony” from Kim Martin, a cousin of Steenkamp.
She told the court that the incident three years ago had irrevocably changed her family.
“I saw my dad, for instance, cry for the very first time when Reeva died, and then for the second time when he heard I’d have to testify,” Martin said.
“As far as I’m concerned (her father Barry is) a broken man… the guilt of the father not being able to protect his daughter, it’s very difficult for him.”
She accused Pistorius of never apologizing for shooting Steenkamp. “All we’ve ever wanted was the truth. Oscars version changed so many times… I have never heard him apologize for shooting and killing Reeva behind that door.”
Pistorius wept in the courtroom.
Martin’s testimony follows the tearful appearance of Steenkamp’s father on the stand Tuesday, who said he still struggles with her death and has “changed completely.”
“Every day of my life is the same,” he said.
New sentencing ordered
Pistorius faces the new hearing after the Supreme Court ruled that his fatal shooting of Steenkamp was murder, not culpable homicide.
Both sides are aiming to wrap up closing arguments Wednesday.
On Monday, the first day of the hearing, clinical psychologist, Jonathan Scholtz, told the court that Pistorius is a “broken man,” not capable of testifying.
The following day, Barry Steenkamp gave an emotional testimony, saying Pistorius “should (pay) for what he did” to his daughter.
Judge Thokozile Masipa, who presided over the original trial, is also presiding over the sentencing.
Emotional testimony
Reeva Steenkamp’s father delivered a gut-wrenching plea Tuesday for Oscar Pistorius to be punished for killing his daughter.
Weeping on the witness stand in a sentencing hearing for Pistorius, Barry Steenkamp said he still speaks to his daughter every day and thinks of her “every morning, afternoon and night. I think about her all the time.”
It was the first time Steenkamp has testified during the three-year legal odyssey that started when Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend in February 2013. Steenkamp has suffered a series of strokes after his daughter’s death and has only been present at part of the ongoing legal process.
“I don’t wish that on any human being, finding out what happened. It devastated us,” Steenkamp said. “I ended up having a stroke and so many things since then have happened to me.”
The father told the South African court that his wife, June, had forgiven Pistorius, but that the former Olympic and Paralympic sprinter must still pay the price for his crime.
‘Reeva is with me all the time’
“You have to understand that forgiveness doesn’t exonerate you from what you did,” he said in the Pretoria courtroom.
“He has to pay for his crime. And I don’t want to say that he must go to the maximum whatever it is, but he has to pay for it.”
Murder carries a minimum sentence of 15 years in South Africa, but the defense is arguing that Pistorius is too mentally ill to serve more prison time and should be hospitalized instead.
The final chapter?
The one-time Paralympic gold medalist is expected to learn his fate by Friday.
The hearing may be the final chapter of his widely watched trials that marked a fall from grace for the athlete, nicknamed “Blade Runner,” the first double-amputee to compete in the Olympics. Pistorius shot his girlfriend dead through a bathroom door in their home on Valentine’s Day 2013, but he has maintained that he thought he was shooting at an intruder.
Jonathan Scholtz, a clinical psychologist, testified Monday that Pistorius was still on medication for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. The psychologist said he would recommend hospitalization if Pistorius were a regular patient.
Pistorius’ brother, Carl Pistorius, tweeted a picture of the athlete after Monday’s session.
But he also showed compassion for Barry Steenkamp.
Here’s what else you need to know:
Hasn’t he been sentenced already?
After a nearly 50-day trial stretched over seven months, Pistorius was convicted of culpable homicide (much like manslaughter) in September 2014. Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled the sprinter had acted negligently when he shot Steenkamp four times through a locked bathroom door but that he didn’t do it intentionally. The Supreme Court of Appeal later changed that conviction to murder.
Why was the verdict changed?
The appeals court ruled that the identity of whoever was behind the bathroom door was irrelevant. Pistorius should have foreseen that his action would kill that person, but he went ahead anyway. The key legal principle is known as dolus eventualis.
Is he in prison?
No, Pistorius is at his uncle’s mansion under house arrest. Pistorius spent about a year in a private cell in the hospital wing of a maximum-security prison. He should have gotten out after 10 months, or a sixth of his sentence, but a South African minister intervened. Pistorius could be going straight back to the cell after the sentencing hearing.