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Oscar Pistorius leaves a courtroom in Pretoria, South Africa, on Tuesday, Apr 8, after testifying about a night he fatally shot his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. Pistorius, a initial double amputee curtain to contest in a Olympics, is indicted of intentionally murdering Steenkamp in Feb 2013. Pistorius has pleaded not guilty to murder and 3 weapons charges.
Pistorius’ sister, Aimee, cries in probity as she listens to her brother’s testimony on Apr 8.
June Steenkamp, Reeva Steenkamp’s mother, reacts as she listens to Pistorius’ testimony on Apr 8.
Pistorius is hugged by his aunt Lois Pistorius in probity on Monday, Apr 7.
Pistorius sits inside a courtroom as members of his invulnerability group speak in a forehead Friday, Mar 28.
Pistorius leaves probity on Mar 28. The hearing was behind until Apr 7 given one of a authorised experts who will support a decider in reaching a outcome was sick.
Steenkamp’s mother, right, and family crony Jenny Strydom conflict in probity Tuesday, Mar 25, during cross-questioning.
Cell phone researcher Francois Moller testifies during a hearing on Mar 25. Questioned by a prosecution, Moller listed in sequence a calls done and perceived by Pistorius after he shot Steenkamp.
Pistorius cries as he sits in a wharf during his hearing on Monday, Mar 24.
Pistorius talks to invulnerability profession Barry Roux on Mar 24.
Pistorius binds his conduct while members of his family speak behind him on Tuesday, Mar 18.
Steenkamp’s mother, wearing a white collared shirt, looks on while a military officer takes records in probity Mar 18.
Pistorius is hugged by his aunt Lois on Mar 18.
Pistorius takes records Monday, Mar 17, as his murder hearing enters a third week.
Pistorius covers his conduct as he listens to discuss justification Thursday, Mar 13.
Forensic questioner Johannes Vermeulen, left, is questioned during a hearing Mar 13.
Pistorius listens to questions during his hearing on Wednesday, Mar 12.
A military officer takes partial in a probity reformation Mar 12. A military discuss consultant pronounced Pistorius was on a stumps of his amputated legs when he knocked down a sealed toilet doorway with a cricket bat to strech his shot girlfriend. That counters a lane star’s avowal he was wearing his prosthetic legs during a time. Defense profession Barry Roux countered by suggesting that even with his prosthetic legs on, Pistorius would not be overhanging a bat during a same tallness as an robust person.
Pistorius listens to cross-questioning on Monday, Mar 10.
Friends of Steenkamp’s family watch Pistorius during his hearing on Mar 7.
Pistorius covers his ears on Thursday, Mar 6, as a declare speaks about a morning Steenkamp was killed.
Pistorius’ sister, Aimee, right, speaks with members of Steenkamp’s family on Mar 6.
Pistorius sits in probity on a third day of his hearing Wednesday, Mar 5.
Pistorius appears on a second day of his hearing Tuesday, Mar 4.
Members of a media work during a mangle in record Mar 4.
Pistorius talks with Roux inside a probity on Mar 4.
Pistorius speaks with his authorised member on Mar 4.
Pistorius is escorted out of a probity Monday, Mar 3, after a initial day of his murder trial.
People try to get a glance of Pistorius as he leaves a probity building on Mar 3.
Pistorius is seen shortly after nearing for his hearing on Mar 3.
Pistorius walks into a courtroom on Mar 3.
Pistorius takes a splash of H2O Mar 3 during his trial.
The box has perplexed South Africa. Here, Lauren Wentzel watches a record from her home outward Cape Town on Mar 3.
June Steenkamp arrives during a probity building for a start of a trial.
Pistorius’ kin wait inside a courtroom on Mar 3.
People during a probity building wait for Pistorius’ attainment on Mar 3.
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(CNN) — He’s famous as a “bull dog” in South Africa’s authorised circles, and only days in to Gerrie Nel’s bloody interrogate of Oscar Pistorius, it’s easy to see why.
The maestro state prosecutor’s relentless barbecuing of Pistorius — on hearing for a murder of his partner Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day final year — has riveted people around a universe to their TV sets, and has sparked a discuss about either Nel’s no-holds-barred plan have crossed a line.
Nel had to wait weeks to take on Pistorius, though has squandered no time given he got a possibility late on Tuesday. At several times Nel has called a 27-year-old a liar, pragmatic that Pistorius was sanctimonious to be too romantic to testify, reduced him to tears, and laughed during him for unwell to remember a answer to one of Nel’s questions as a prosecutor ruthlessly tore into several aspects of his testimony.
On Wednesday Nel took a invulnerability by warn when he played a video, taken only months before Steenkamp’s death, of Pistorius sharpened a watermelon during a banishment operation with friends and describing a impact as a “zombie-stopper.”
“You know that a same happened to Reeva’s head? It exploded,” Nel told Pistorius, before display a probity — and a multitudes around a universe examination on live TV — a gruesome sketch of Steenkamp’s bleeding head, her hair dripping in blood and hankie from a impact of a bullet that tore by her skull.
Prosecutor to Pistorius: You’re fibbing
Pistorius has antagonistic cross-examination
Prosecutor to Pistorius: You’re fibbing
Inside a mind of Oscar Pistorius
Pistorius: ‘She wasn’t breathing’
“Have a demeanour there,” Nel barked, to gasps from a courtroom. “I know we don’t wish to given we don’t wish to take responsibility, though it’s time that we demeanour during it.”
Pistorius, pathetic heavily, said, “I’ve taken shortcoming though we will not demeanour during a design where I’m worried by what we saw and felt that night. As we picked Reeva adult my fingers overwhelmed her conduct — we remember, we don’t have to demeanour during a picture, we was there.”
Pistorius’ family sat confounded during a front of a courtroom. The sprinter’s attorney, Barry Roux, called Nel’s plan an “ambush” and objected. And a probity shelved for a recess, withdrawal a excitable Pistorius to yowl in a wharf and repelled reporters and authorised observers to discuss what they’d only seen.
“It’s not surprising for an indicted to be shown cinema of a deceased. Although not always in this thespian manner,” tweeted Barry Bateman, an Eyewitness News contributor in a courtroom.
Other reporters pronounced that Jun Steenkamp, Reeva’s mother, had been warned about a print and understood why a charge believed it indispensable to be shown.
Did Nel exceed a end of goodness in his inquire of Pistorius? CNN authorised consultant Kelly Phelps says that while Nel’s plan — to dishearten a indicted and destabilize his chronicle of events — was valid, display a universe a bloody print of Steenkamp was “unnecessary and gratuitous.”
“Nel has a shortcoming to strengthen a grace of a defunct and a victim’s family,” Phelps said. “He could have showed Pistorius that print though carrying to promote it for a whole universe to see.”
While Phelps pronounced many people she spoke to common that view, others pronounced that Nel’s ultimate shortcoming to a plant and a family is to grasp justice. If that’s how a prosecutor thinks he’ll get a conviction, afterwards he’s right to pursue any avenues to get there, a meditative goes.
Nel has murderous utterly a few hostile lawyers over a march of his career, Phelps says, though he has prolonged had a repute for being intrepid and incorruptible. But while he’s famous for being a courtroom longhorn dog, is his bellow worse than his bite? Despite his dual and a half day attack on Pistorius’ testimony, a fact stays that a state has really small justification to oppose a lane star’s chronicle of events that night.
“I consider he knows that a state’s box is mostly circumstantial, and it was always going to rest heavily on cross-examining Pistorius,” Phelps said. “And while Nel’s been successful in removing his account on a record, he hasn’t nonetheless been means to get Pistorius to support that narrative.”
In other countries, Nel’s roughly melodramatic proceed competence be means to lean some members of a jury, though South Africa doesn’t have jury trials — and Judge Thokozile Masipa has already reprimanded Nel several times when he stepped over a line in her view.
Ultimately Phelps says she doesn’t design a judge’s preference to be influenced by a prosecutor’s aptitude for a dramatic.
“She’s gifted adequate to know a several plan employed by a lawyers on any side,” Phelps says. “She will have sat before them in probity on many occasions, and she’s good positioned to cut by a white noise.”
“Still, it’s never correct to get a judge’s behind up.”
READ MORE: Pistorius: we never picked on Reeva Steenkamp
CNN Wires contributed to this report.