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Oscar and Reeva had 'heated arguments'

Pretoria - Reeva Steenkamp's mother has revealed in a new documentary aired in the UK that her late daughter fought with her alleged murderer Oscar Pistorius "a lot".

June Steenkamp appeared in the Channel 5 programme Why Did Oscar Pistorius Kill Our Daughter? - which aired in the UK on Monday night - and expressed her anger and regret about not being able to protect her daughter, reports TimesLive.

She recalled a tense telephone conversation she had with the 29-year-old model, who was travelling in a car with the Paralympic athlete.

"She was afraid, she was so afraid. She phoned me and she said: 'Mummy I'm in the car with Oscar and he's driving like a lunatic.'

"I said: 'Will you just give him the phone'. She gave the phone to Oscar straight away. I said, 'Listen, if you hurt my baby in any way I will have you wiped out.'

"A week or so later she phoned me, we chatted about this and that, little girl things. I said: 'How's it going with Oscar?' She said that 'We've been fighting, we've been fighting a lot'."

Graphic crime scene photos

Pistorius is set to make a brief appearance in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court Room C on Tuesday on a charge of premeditated murder. Pistorius maintains that he shot and killed his girlfriend through a locked bathroom door at his luxury Silver Lakes home on Valentine's Day believing she was an intruder.

Local and international media had already flocked to the court by Tuesday morning to cover the Blade Runner's pre-trial hearing.

If found guilty of premeditated murder, Pistorius could face a life term in jail.

The case took a twist on Friday when graphic photos of the crime scene were leaked and published by Sky News in the UK. On Sunday night, Pistorius's uncle Arnold Pistorius said a leaked photograph, purportedly showing the scene where Steenkamp was shot dead, had "shaken" the family.

National police spokesperson Brigadier Phuti Setati said on Friday police could not comment on the photograph because they did not know how it came to be in Sky News's possession, reports Sapa.

"We don't want to be distracted by these deliberate tactics. All that we want to do is secure a conviction, so we are working throughout and investigating professionally," he said.

June Steenkamp said on the documentary that she and her family are "praying so hard" for their ordeal to be over.

Reeva Steenkamp's uncle, Mike, said on Monday that neither he nor his brother, Reeva's father Barry, would not be watching Tuesday's court proceedings.

"Tomorrow will bring whatever it will bring. We are just trying to live our lives. Our family is taking it very hard. Words cannot bring Reeva back, no matter how much we want that. We just have to, for now, let it be."
 
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