Oscar Pistorius's uncle hits out at 'astonishing' new claimsApr 22, 2016
Amateur sleuths say Paralympian shot Reeva Steenkamp with air gun before killing her with revolver.
New claims that Oscar Pistorius assaulted girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp before shooting her have been dismissed as absurd by the Paralympian's uncle, Arnold.
Pistorius has always maintained that he believed there was a dangerous intruder in his bathroom when he fired into its door and killed Steenkampf, a version of events accepted by original trial judge, Thokozile Masipa.
However, in their book Oscar vs the Truth, amateur investigators Thomas and Calvin Mollett claim there is evidence to suggest Pistorius battered his girlfriend with a cricket bat and shot her with an air gun before killing her with a revolver.
Among what The Sun describes as "astonishing" claims, the brothers say a 4.5mm hole in the bedroom door and a wound of a similar size on Steenkamp's upper left arm appear to match the calibre of an air gun owned by Pistorius.
They also claim that the couple were fighting for more than an hour before the shooting and that neighbour Estelle van der Merwe, who told the trial she had heard "loud voices" coming from the house, would have been in the "perfect" position to witness the events.
"The court found it completely differently," he said, suggesting that the authors could not have read nor understood the trial findings as "every little detail" was explored.
Experts testified that Steenkamp had suffered injuries from bullet fragments, as well as wood splinters from the toilet door and pieces of her own bone. A hole in the bedroom door has also previously been put down to projectiles and it was agreed by the prosecutors and defence that Pistorius used the cricket bat to break down the toilet door.
In her final judgment, the judge said Merwe had been "in and out of sleep" and had "no idea" where the voices she heard came from, what language was being spoken or what was being said.
"Accordingly, there is nothing in the evidence of Ms van der Merwe that links what sounded like an argument to her to the incident at the house of the accused," she concluded.
Pistorius is due to be sentenced in June for the murder of Steenkamp, after his original conviction of culpable homicide was changed to murder.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/oscar-pistorius/53387/oscar-pistoriuss-uncle-hits-out-at-astonishing-new-claims