Profiles of the judge, the prosecutor and the defence lawyer in the trial of Oscar Pistorius, which started on Monday.
The judge: Thokozile Masipa
At the centre of the biggest media circus in South African legal history is a former crime reporter who was never short of stories during the dog days of the apartheid era. Masipa was also a social worker after leaving school in 1976, and only completed her law degree at 43. In 1998 she became the second black woman on the Transvaal bench, and has spoken out strongly about violence against women in her judgements and twice handed down maximum sentences to men convicted of such crimes. One was in 2009 against Freddy Mashamba, a police officer who shot and killed his former wife after a row over their divorce settlement. “No one is above the law,” Masipa said. “You deserve to go to jail for life because you are not a protector. You are a killer.”
The second was in May against Shepherd Moyo, a serial rapist and burglar whose sentence of 252 years was intended to serve as a deterrent, she said. “The worst in my view is that he attacked and raped the victims in the sanctity of their own homes where they thought they were safe.”
The prosecutor: Gerrie Nel
Nel a career prosecutor with more than 30 years’ experience, has handled some of South Africa’s biggest cases and is unlikely to be disconcerted by the spotlight. He has known worse. In 2008, when he was prosecuting Jackie Selebi, the country’s most senior police officer and later president of Interpol, Nel was arrested by 20 police officers in front of his wife and children in the early hours one morning. Fraud charges against him were later dropped and, two years later, Nel secured a corruption conviction against Selebi, who was sentenced to 15 years behind bars. “Everything he touches turns to gold,” Mthunzi Mhaga, a former national prosecuting authority spokesman, told South African media.
The defence: Barry Roux
In a case being compared to the OJ Simpson trial before it even opens, South Africa’s answer to the charismatic American defence lawyer Johnnie Cochran is Barry Roux, who will strive to prevent Pistorius from going to jail. Roux was admitted to the Johannesburg bar in 1982 and is a senior advocate with a colourful history of clients. — including Dave King, a Scottish-born businessman and former Rangers football club director who risked jail for ignoring the biggest tax bill in South African history. It is speculated that Roux could be earning around 50,000 rand (Dh17,035) a day. He stole the limelight during Pistorius’s bail hearing when he tore into the evidence of the lead detective Hilton Botha. “This is like watching a baby seal getting clubbed,” one South African journalist tweeted.
