South African police detective Hilton Botha attends the bail hearing of South African Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius in Pretoria/AFP
Police made the sensational announcement as Pistorius arrived for a third day of a bail hearing over the Valentine’s Day shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, which prosecutors say was a premeditated killing and defence argues was an accident.
Lead detective Hilton Botha, whose testimony was challenged by defence attorneys on Wednesday, is facing seven attempted murder charges for shooting at a minibus taxi in 2009, police said.
“We were only informed yesterday that attempted murder charges against Hilton Botha have been reinstated,” police spokesman Neville Malila told AFP, referring to the detective leading the investigation against Pistorius.
Pistorius’s lawyers tore into Botha’s police work during Wednesday’s hearing, undermining his witnesses and forcing him to agree that the Olympian’s version of events fitted the crime scene.
“It sounds consistent,” Botha, a prosecution witness, told the court.
Pistorius vehemently denies the premeditated murder charges against him, claiming he mistook the 29-year-old covergirl for an intruder.
Despite gaining the upper hand on Wednesday, Pistorius’s team still needs to give compelling reasons why he should be freed pending his trial, after having spent a week in detention already.
Charged with “premeditated murder”, he has to prove exceptional circumstances that his release is in the interest of justice – a high bar for bail.
Lawyers for both sides are expected to wrap up arguments for bail on Thursday.
If Pistorius is not granted bail he faces months and perhaps years in pre-trail detention.
Prosecutors are expected to say the global celebrity is a flight risk – something he has denied and Magistrate Desmond Nair has appeared to question.
“Pistorius does not pose a flight risk, which is evident having regard to his international stature and exposure,” his family said in a statement.
Thursday may reveal whether the Paralympic champion will also use disability as grounds to argue for his freedom.
He runs on carbon-fibre blades, which inspired his nickname, after being born without the fibulas in both of his legs which were amputated below the knee when he was a baby.
“He’s spent years telling the world he is able. What enables him to be able-bodied? Technology. Now if he finds himself without technology, is he able?” asked criminologist Laurie Pieters, who is not involved with the case.
Defence lawyers refused to comment on their tactics, saying the mystery around their arguments was intentional.
Experts speculated that Wednesday’s events could have a significant bearing on the trial itself.
“This is a disaster for the trial and raises questions,” said Frans Cronje of the South African Institute of Race Relations.
“They (the police) have been put on trial.”
On Wednesday defence lawyer Barry Roux cast doubt on key witnesses who suggested a row between the couple before the shooting.
A woman who lives in the same highly secured complex as Pistorius “heard talking that sounded like non-stop fighting from two to three in the morning,” hours before she was killed, Prosecutor Gerrie Nel said.
Another witness reported hearing gunshots, screams and then more shots, police said.
“Then he heard a female screaming two-three times, then more gunshots,” Botha said.
But Roux disputed these accounts, as police said one witness was at least 300 metres (nearly 1,000 feet) from the house and the other had misheard the number of gunshots fired.
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