Precedent?

On Valentine’s Day, international sports superstar and one of South Africa’s most famous sons, Oscar Pistorius, allegedly killed his girlfriend. 

Since then some time has passed, Oscar has been granted bail and bail conditions have been relaxed (a.k.a. removed). International journalists have left, Oscar is no longer on the front page of every news paper and sentiments among South Africans are slowly turning in favour of their fallen star. This weekend, these comments were published in the Sunday Times:

How many murderers are walking around South Africa? Why can’t Oscar, who is only accused of murder? Leave him alone.

I feel very sorry for both families, Reeva and Oscar himself. I appeal to the nation and the world to accept him back. We need him so much!

Why can’t people leave Oscar alone? He has also been through a terrible crime. He needs to get out – he can’t stay cooped up forever in his uncle’s house.

As South African’s warm towards Oscar once again, I started wondering whether this is a sign for the trial ahead. Having long had the suspicion that Oscar might get away with it, a similar case caught my attention.

In December 2012, Zimbabwe’s most prominent footballer Peter Ndlovu killed two people in a car accident. Ndlovu claims that he lost control of the car as a result of a burst tire. 

Two weeks ago, a court acquitted Ndlovu of culpable homicide. The judges ruled that “the State had failed to prove that Ndlovu was driving recklessly at excessive speed prior to the accident” and criticised the investigators for not following the right procedures and producing false evidence. Consequently, the judges dropped all charges relating to the accident and Ndlovu left the court as a free man.

Reading this, made me wonder whether this case might be a precedent for what is to come in the Oscar Pistorius trial.

In the bail application process, the South African police admitted to a shocking series of blunders during the investigations: false claims of forbidden substances, incorrectly recorded and unverified witness accounts, overlooked bullets, a contaminated crime scene, missing evidence, failure to check phone records, and last but not least a lead investigator, who faced charges of attempted murder himself. Police even admitted that there was no evidence to contradict Pistorius’ version of events and Oscar’s lawyer subsequently stated that “police take every piece of evidence and try to extract the most possibly negative connotation”.

Given the lack of witnesses, the mistakes made by prosecutors, the corrupted crime scene and missing evidence, I couldn’t help but wonder whether the State’s murder case was doomed to fail. With the Zimbabwean court ruling in mind, it no longer seems impossible that Oscar might get away with manslaughter, a suspended jail sentence and an order to pay compensation to the family of the victim.

But regardless of what the court will rule, we will probably never know for sure what happened on the night of Valentine’s Day. But South African’s seem to be willing to believe Oscar’s version of the story:

“I am acutely aware of violent crime and have received death threats before. I have also been a victim of violence and of burglaries before. During the early hours of the morning, I heard a noise and realised that someone was in the bathroom. I believed that someone had entered my house. As I did not have my prosthetic legs on and felt extremely vulnerable. I knew I had to protect Reeva and myself. I fired shots at the toilet door. When I realised that Reeva was not in bed, it dawned on me that it could have been Reeva who was in the toilet.”