World News:
Miss Burger, a lecturer at the University of Pretoria, was the first witness to give evidence in what has been billed as one of the biggest criminal trials of the decade.
Pistorius, a globally-renowned paralympian, is accused of the premeditated murder of Steenkamp, an FHM model and law graduate, after a furious row in the early hours of St Valentine's Day last year.
He insisted once again in a statement read to the court yesterday that he had shot her through the locked lavatory door of his home believing she was an intruder.
"What happened was a tragic accident," he said. "We were in a loving relationship.
"There was no argument. The allegation I wanted to shoot or kill Reeva could not be further from the truth."
June Steenkamp, the mother of Reeva Steenkamp, left, wipes her face with a tissue
During previous court appearances, Pistorius has seemed shaken and was at
times extremely emotional. But a year after the shooting, on this first day of
his trial, he was composed and engaged in the proceedings, writing furiously on
a notepad throughout the day, and at times passing notes to his legal team.
Officially asked to respond to the murder charge against him, Pistorius - wearing a neatly-pressed black suit, white shirt and black tie - told the red-robed Judge Thokozile Mapisa: "Not guilty, M'lady."
He also pleaded not guilty to two further charges of recklessly shooting a firearm in public previously, and illegal possession of ammunition.
Seated behind the 27-year-old athlete in the public gallery were nine members of his family including his siblings Carl and Aimee and, just yards away from them, Steenkamp's mother June.
As she walked into court this morning, Mrs Steenkamp saw the man her daughter loved and was later killed by for the first time. Flanked by a group of friends, she seemed a woman still in deep grief, wearing a grim, mask-like expression.
The evidence was at times harrowing. Miss Burger told how the woman whose screams woke also cried out for help and then she heard a man screaming for help.
She said that there was a gap between the first shot and the next three, describing it as "bang (pause), bang bang bang."
She said that what he heard that night had left her "cold", but that she had assumed it was a robbery in which the man of the house had been shot.
"I sat upright in bed and my husband also woke up from the screams. He jumped up and went to the balcony," she told the court in Afrikaans.
"She screamed terribly and yelled for help. Then I also heard a man scream for help, three times he yelled for help."
The slight and often tearful witness said she called to her husband to come back into the room to call security. The couple told them that there was "an attack in Silverwoods estate", where Pistorius lived.
"I heard screams again, it was worse, more intense," she said.
Asked to clarify about the nature of what she heard, she said: "She was very scared. It was a scream that was a climax.
"It was very traumatic for me to hear those blood curdling screams. It leaves you cold to hear that angst, that fear."
She said she then heard gun shots, with a pause after the first then another three, and thought she heard the screaming continue as the firing went on.
"Very shortly after the last shot was the last time I heard her voice," she added.
Miss Burger's evidence boosts the strength of the prosecution case since at Pistorius' bail hearing days after the shooting last February, the nearest witness police had spoken to was at least 500m away.
But it also part-corroborates Pistorius' statement that he cried out for help after shooting Miss Steenkamp, saying he only realised then that she was not an intruder.
Barry Roux, Pistorius' pugnacious barrister who tore apart the lead detective at the bail hearing last year, forcing him to admit that police had little evidence to challenge his client's account, made little headway with Miss Burger.
He sought to suggest that the witness was hamming up her account for the cameras, pointing out that she made no mention of the "bloodcurdling" nature of the screams in her statement to police. She countered that she told them it was "terrifying".
The barrister suggested that Miss Burger had heard not gunshots but Pistorius beating down the lavatory door with a cricket bat once he realised he had shot his girlfriend rather than an intruder. She responded that living in South Africa, a country with one of the world's highest rates of violent crime, she knew what gunshots sounded like and could tell the difference.
Professor Stephen Tuson, a criminal barrister and law lecturer at Wits University, said Miss Burger held up unusually well under cross examination and her evidence would undoubtedly strengthen the prosecution's hand.
"We started in cross-examination to get a glimpse of the defence's case in dealing with these very important witnesses who claim to have heard what happened," he said.
"Mr Roux was suggesting that the shots might have been fired before she woke and she heard the cricket bat beating against the door instead. She was a very strong witness however and she knew her own mind.
"Ultimately, it will be up to the judge and the assessors sitting with her to decide how much weight to place on it."
Miss Burger, a lecturer at the University of Pretoria, was the first witness to give evidence in what has been billed as one of the biggest criminal trials of the decade.
Pistorius, a globally-renowned paralympian, is accused of the premeditated murder of Steenkamp, an FHM model and law graduate, after a furious row in the early hours of St Valentine's Day last year.
He insisted once again in a statement read to the court yesterday that he had shot her through the locked lavatory door of his home believing she was an intruder.
"What happened was a tragic accident," he said. "We were in a loving relationship.
"There was no argument. The allegation I wanted to shoot or kill Reeva could not be further from the truth."
June Steenkamp, the mother of Reeva Steenkamp, left, wipes her face with a tissue
Officially asked to respond to the murder charge against him, Pistorius - wearing a neatly-pressed black suit, white shirt and black tie - told the red-robed Judge Thokozile Mapisa: "Not guilty, M'lady."
He also pleaded not guilty to two further charges of recklessly shooting a firearm in public previously, and illegal possession of ammunition.
Seated behind the 27-year-old athlete in the public gallery were nine members of his family including his siblings Carl and Aimee and, just yards away from them, Steenkamp's mother June.
As she walked into court this morning, Mrs Steenkamp saw the man her daughter loved and was later killed by for the first time. Flanked by a group of friends, she seemed a woman still in deep grief, wearing a grim, mask-like expression.
The evidence was at times harrowing. Miss Burger told how the woman whose screams woke also cried out for help and then she heard a man screaming for help.
She said that there was a gap between the first shot and the next three, describing it as "bang (pause), bang bang bang."
She said that what he heard that night had left her "cold", but that she had assumed it was a robbery in which the man of the house had been shot.
"I sat upright in bed and my husband also woke up from the screams. He jumped up and went to the balcony," she told the court in Afrikaans.
"She screamed terribly and yelled for help. Then I also heard a man scream for help, three times he yelled for help."
The slight and often tearful witness said she called to her husband to come back into the room to call security. The couple told them that there was "an attack in Silverwoods estate", where Pistorius lived.
"I heard screams again, it was worse, more intense," she said.
Asked to clarify about the nature of what she heard, she said: "She was very scared. It was a scream that was a climax.
"It was very traumatic for me to hear those blood curdling screams. It leaves you cold to hear that angst, that fear."
She said she then heard gun shots, with a pause after the first then another three, and thought she heard the screaming continue as the firing went on.
"Very shortly after the last shot was the last time I heard her voice," she added.
Miss Burger's evidence boosts the strength of the prosecution case since at Pistorius' bail hearing days after the shooting last February, the nearest witness police had spoken to was at least 500m away.
But it also part-corroborates Pistorius' statement that he cried out for help after shooting Miss Steenkamp, saying he only realised then that she was not an intruder.
Barry Roux, Pistorius' pugnacious barrister who tore apart the lead detective at the bail hearing last year, forcing him to admit that police had little evidence to challenge his client's account, made little headway with Miss Burger.
He sought to suggest that the witness was hamming up her account for the cameras, pointing out that she made no mention of the "bloodcurdling" nature of the screams in her statement to police. She countered that she told them it was "terrifying".
The barrister suggested that Miss Burger had heard not gunshots but Pistorius beating down the lavatory door with a cricket bat once he realised he had shot his girlfriend rather than an intruder. She responded that living in South Africa, a country with one of the world's highest rates of violent crime, she knew what gunshots sounded like and could tell the difference.
Professor Stephen Tuson, a criminal barrister and law lecturer at Wits University, said Miss Burger held up unusually well under cross examination and her evidence would undoubtedly strengthen the prosecution's hand.
"We started in cross-examination to get a glimpse of the defence's case in dealing with these very important witnesses who claim to have heard what happened," he said.
"Mr Roux was suggesting that the shots might have been fired before she woke and she heard the cricket bat beating against the door instead. She was a very strong witness however and she knew her own mind.
"Ultimately, it will be up to the judge and the assessors sitting with her to decide how much weight to place on it."
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