Oscar Pistorius plans to sell the $460,000 house where he shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp last year to pay his legal fees.
Pistorius, currently on trial for shooting Steenkamp in the upstairs bathroom of his luxury home in Pretoria on Valentine’s Day last year, is spending as much as $9000 a day on his defence, which claims that Steenkamp’s death was the result of a tragic accident.
The paralympian’s costs are believed to include at least three full time lawyers, ballistics and forensics experts and a US crime scene reconstruction team.
“It has become necessary to sell Mr Pistorius’s home in the Silver Woods Country Estate in Pretoria in order for him to raise the necessary funds to cover his increasing legal costs,” said his lawyer Brian Webber in a statement released earlier today.
“This is due to the unexpected extension of the trial beyond the initial three-week period for which it was originally set down.”
The home is one of three properties owned by the athlete, who has lived at his uncle’s home in Pretoria since his 29-year-old girlfriend’s death. His lawyer said Pistorius “cannot contemplate ever returning to live there again”.
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