Pistorius not required to report to police: court

PRETORIA - Agence France-Presse

AP PHoto

Star athlete Oscar Pistorius, who has been charged with murdering his girlfriend, does not have to report to police as part of his bail terms contrary to previous reports, a clerk at Pretoria Magistrate Court clerk said Monday.
 
"It is not part of his bail conditions," the clerk told AFP.
 
The bail order document seen by AFP confirmed it was not one of the terms.
 
The 26-year-old double amputee athlete known as the "Blade Runner" was released on a one million rand ($112,408) bond Friday.
 
He was expected to report to the Brooklyn police station in Pretoria Monday morning, where a large contingent of local and international media were waiting, but did not turn up.
 
Earlier reports had said that Pistorius had to sign in at the police station on Mondays and Fridays between 0500 GMT and 1100 GMT.
 
But the condition had been a suggestion from defence and prosecution teams that the magistrate, Desmond Nair, had not included in his final order, a prosecution official confirmed.
 
"The NPA (National Prosecuting Authority) has confirmed that the condition that he report to the Brooklyn police station has not been made an order of court," the official told AFP.
 
Prosecutors charge that Pistorius intentionally shot dead 29-year-old model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp at his upmarket Pretoria home in the early hours of Valentine's Day.
 
The Olympic and Paralympic sprinter denies the charge, insisting that he repeatedly shot at Steenkamp through a locked bathroom door in the dead of night having mistaken her for a burglar.
 
He is due back in court on June 4.
 
In addition to the bail payment, one of the highest ever set in South Africa, Pistorius had to surrender his passports and firearms. He is also barred from taking alcohol or drugs and will be subject to random tests.
 
The sprinter has to inform a prisons official of his movements within Pretoria and needs permission to leave the capital and been banned from leaving the country.
 
The athlete's father Henke told AFP in a telephone call on Monday that matters were "under control".
 
"Everything is prepared for the trial," he said, though he lashed out at news coverage of his family.
 
"The media have once again proven themselves reckless," he said, hanging up the call.
 
Pistorius's elder brother Carl made headlines Sunday over a manslaughter charge for a 2008 accident in which a woman motorcyclist died.
 
Oscar Pistorius inspired millions of people around the world after becoming the first double amputee to compete against able-bodied athletes in the Olympic Games last year in London.
 
His arrest has riveted South Africa and beyond.