Double-amputee Olympian Oscar Pistorius is set to return to court next week. Source: AAP
SOUTH African double-amputee Olympian Oscar Pistorius will return to court next week, when he is expected to be indicted for murdering lover Reeva Steenkamp and receive a date for trial.
The 26-year-old sprinter will appear in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court on Monday six months after shooting dead girlfriend Steenkamp in the toilet of his upscale home.
The platinum blonde cover girl and law graduate died on Valentine's Day after being shot in the head, elbow and hip.
She would have turned 30 on Monday, when prosecutors are expected to unveil a five-page indictment against Pistorius for premeditated murder, according to sources close to the investigation.
The hearing is expected to be brief, and according to Pistorius family spokeswoman Anneliese Burgess the "chances are very high that a trial date will be set."
Pistorius, who is out on bail and faces a life sentence if found guilty, has denied murder, saying he shot Steenkamp through a locked bathroom door because he believed she was an intruder.
The trial is not expected to start until 2014, given the backlog in South Africa's regional high courts.
A single senior judge will hear the case. South Africa does not have a jury system.
The indictment could detail key aspects of the police investigation into Steenkamp's death that came under scrutiny during a lengthy bail hearing.
These may include ballistics information from the bathroom door suggesting Pistorius's height at the time of the shooting.
Prosecutors assert he donned his two prosthetic legs before firing four shots through the bathroom door, a delay they say proves the murder was premeditated.
The athlete, who was born without calf bones and had both legs amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old, claims he was on his stumps.
The indictment could also shed light on phone records from four cell phones found outside the room where Steenkamp had locked herself in.
Investigators had to contact mobile manufacturer Apple in the United States as well as Interpol to access one of the phones, Pistorius's iPhone 5.
The athlete apparently could not remember the four-digit pass code to unlock the phone, according to media reports.
Pistorius may also face two new charges related to firing a gun in public, local media reported.
According to eNCA television news on Friday, one of the charges is linked to an event in January where Pistorius - who is already accused of murdering his girlfriend - accidentally fired a gun in an upmarket Johannesburg restaurant.
In another case, Pistorius allegedly discharged his gun out of the sunroof of a friend's car on their way back from a holiday.
The National Prosecuting Authority declined to confirm the additional charges, saying "everything would be revealed in court" at the pre-trial hearing on Monday.
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