Oscar Pistorius' theatrics such as throwing up in the dock and constantly crying while on trial for fatally shooting his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his home last year, is being viewed with scepticism after a South African journalist claimed that he took acting lessons to appear sympathetic in the courtroom.
Jani Allan, a former columnist with The South African Sunday Times stated in an open letter to Pistorius that she is aware of the fact that he took acting lessons.
"I have it from a reliable source that you are taking acting lessons for your days in court. Your coach has an impossible task," she wrote in her blog. "Oscar, I look at you mewling and puking in the witness stand. You truly represent everything that the West loathes about white South Africans who live extravagant lives in their expensive laagers."
Allan also wrote that she finds it ridiculous that he maintains that his shooting of Steenkamp was an accident. Pistorius shot at Steenkamp through a closed bathroom door on Valentine's Day last year allegedly believing she was a burglar. Previous evidence suggested that Steenkamp would have cried out after being wounded on the hip and arm, thereby alerting Pistorius to the fact that the person in the bathroom was his girlfriend and not an intruder.
Speculations are also rife that Pistorius shot at her after a violent argument, but the blade runner has always maintained that the two shared a loving relationship.
"Oscar, like so many who preceded you, you have betrayed your people and disappointed your fans. You are the latest in a long line of faux heroes," Allan concluded.
Allan appears to have a supporter in June Steenkamp, Reeva's mother, who believes that Pistorius is not being sincere.
"He has been very dramatic, the vomiting and crying. I think he's just about keeping himself together. I don't know whether he's acting," June said, according to the New York Daily News.
Pistorius' trial will resume on May 5 and if convicted he faces 25 years to life behind bars.
(ED:VS)
