South Africa does not have trial by jury.

Equal footing, get it?

He seems a rather uptight young man. Not footloose and fancy free at all!

Really? From what they show on tv he appears to have a spring in his step.

The man is guilty.

- if not him, who shot her?
- if one has a loaded gun, and suspects a break in/robber, one challenges the intruder verbally.
- by the voice he would have heard if it was his girl friend, and she would have recognized his voice
- all that wining and crying about being innocent is incredible to me.
- if you own a gun, you must be aware of all the consequences, no matter if you're in South Africa or somewhere else in the world.

He wasn't really expecting any mess was he?

Are you referring to his outburst toward the prosecutor when the crime scene photos of Reena were shown? I wonder about that - was it genuine grief or contrived, or was it a little peek at his temper?

That and the vomiting. Or is it worry about being in prison for a long time? Maybe his steroids are wearing off and he is over emotional. a nasty control freak.

If he is found not guilty of murder because he thought it was an intruder can he then be tried for attempted murder of an intruder? But as the intruder never existed then how could he be tried for that?

I guess he will no longer have access to fancy prosthetics, that will add to his punishment.

Her name was Reeva, not Reena.

Oops, sorry about that. Tough to guess how this will play out; shooting an intruder may not be frowned upon in SA like it is in Canada because the threat of a home invasion is far greater there, (so I've been told by reliable sources). Also I don't know how their justice system works. Can the judge's ruling be challenged and overturned on appeal like here and can the prosecution appeal as well if they don't like the verdict or the sentence? If he gets off can the victim's family launch a civil suit (ala OJ)? I don't think any judge wants to hand down a ruling knowing it won't survive an appeal. Mercifully this trial isn't on television all day and night and all participants awarded star status.

The trial is on tv here in Australia on one of the Foxtel (cable) channels. I watched about an hour of it on Friday when I was off. Very interesting. It's really different to the American or Canadian trials I've seen.

Yeah ... I think it was all temper and rage... I don't honestly think he really 'meant' to kill her, but his rage got the better of him and that's why we're now getting all the histrionics in the courtroom..

Of course we'll never know the whole truth but it makes sense to me that she locked herself in the bathroom out of fear. And when he couldn't break the door open with the cricket bat, he got the gun to shoot the lock ... why else would all four shots be aimed at door handle.. I think he was in such a rage by then he never thought about the fact that the bullets may hit her.... bang, bang, bang, bang, too late..and too sad.. He has to live with it from here on in and I hope it's really painful.

I heard a noise the other night so, startled and scared, I jumped out of bed and did all the usual things: checked the windows, checked the patio door, hit the toilet door with a cricket bat, shot the girlfriend four times, then checked the front door and found it closed and locked.

No sign of any intruder, so I went back to bed

Yeah ... but are your legs amputated at the knees ... ...

It makes all the difference when you're defending your actions ..

I was intrigued in his not so subtle move away from the putative self-defence argument to one of apparent involuntary action whilst holding the gun.

Not a good move in my opinion whilst being cross examined. I think there was a realisation that if he admitted to shooting at 'anybody' within the bathroom he might be liable to a conviction of a lesser offence. The young child or unarmed burglar option he did not consider so to speak.

His testimony that he shouted at Reeva to call the police (and heard no response from her) before he shot is probably the most unbelievable and damaging of anything he said in my opinion. Also not good news for him was the fact that the judge intervened at one point and asked him why he was making so many mistakes whilst giving evidence. (Making lots of mistakes on the witness stand is a major side effect of lying in my experience.)