Witnesses claimed they heard arguing, a woman screaming and gunfire at the house of "Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius the night he shot dead his model girlfriend, police told a South African court Wednesday.
Pistorius's defence team undermined the reliability of the claims as the South African sporting hero sought bail for the Valentine's Day killing that he insists was a horrible accident and not intentional, as prosecutors aim to prove.
Police also said Pistorius had previously been arrested at his Pretoria home for assault, although he was not charged, and faced further charges of possessing an unlicenced gun.
A woman who lives in the same highly secured Pretoria complex as Pistorius "heard talking that sounded like non-stop fighting from two to three in the morning", hours before she was killed, Prosecutor Gerrie Nel said.
"We have the statement of a person who said after he heard gunshots, he went to his balcony and saw the light was on. Then he heard a female screaming two-three times, then more gunshots," Detective Hilton Botha said.
But Pistorius's legal team disputed these accounts as police said the witnesses were 300 metres (660 feet) from the house.
And the prosecution, which wants to prove that the Paralympian had deliberately planned to kill Steenkamp, was forced to admit that Pistorius's claim that he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder matched the crime scene.
Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, was shot three times through the bathroom door early on February 14, with wounds to her head, elbow and hip.
She was declared to have died later by medics who found her covered in bloodied towels and wearing white shorts and a black vest.
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