'Innocent' Pistorius insists had acted 'involuntarily' while firing shots that killed Reeva

Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius has reportedly maintained that he is innocent and that he had acted involuntarily when he fired the shots that killed his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp last year, as his week-long court testimony came to an end on Tuesday.

Pistorius risks a life sentence for murder, but has testified that though he was ready to confront a suspected intruder hiding behind the locked door of the toilet cubicle in his home, he was not thinking when he fired the shots that hit Steenkamp in the hip, arm and head.

According to News24, chief prosecutor Gerrie Nel said that Pistorius was lying and had killed his girlfriend in cold blood, but failed to win a concession from him that the Blade Runner had intended to fire his 9mm pistol.

Concluding his dogged cross-examination of Pistorius, Nel said that the court should find that Pistorius' account of the shooting on Valentine's Day last year was 'so improbable that it could not reasonably, possibly be true', adding that this means the sprinter has changed his defence 'from putative self-defence to involuntary action'.

Meanwhile, Pistorius denied that Steenkamp fell onto the rack, suggesting that the police had moved it after the fact - a recurring theme in his testimony and also denied the neighbours' accounts that they had heard Steenkamp's blood-curdling screams.