Pretoria - The murder trial of paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius will break from Thursday until May 5, Judge Thokozile Masipa told the High Court in Pretoria.
She said on Wednesday that the matter had initially been expected to run for three weeks but was now in its seventh week.
Prosecutor Gerrie Nel asked for the postponement on Tuesday. He said, amongst other things, his colleague had another matter to attend to.
“There comes a time... and this is it, where the diary becomes clogged up,” Nel said on Tuesday.
He indicated that with the long Easter weekend approaching, they had made personal arrangements which they would like to attend to.
Masipa urged counsel to continue working on their cases through the holiday.
“The record has almost 2 000 pages,” said Masipa, adding that most of it was technical evidence from expert witness.
She said she considered the possible prejudice Pistorius could face due to the postponement. She concluded that he suffered no prejudice as he was out on bail, and the adjournment would only be for seven working days.
Masipa added that she could not allow the May 7 elections to disrupt the trial. - Sapa