Oscar Pistorius breaks Twitter silence with prayer and psalm

Oscar Pistorius, who is accused of murdering his girlfriend, has broken months of silence on Twitter with a prayer, a quote from a book about Auschwitz and photographs showing him with disabled children.

Today he tweeted the prayer: "Lord, today I ask that you bathe those who live in pain in the river of your healing, Amen". Yesterday he tweeted from his verified account @OscarPistorius an extract from the bible, Psalm 34:18, which reads: "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted".

Another tweet yesterday shows a photograph of a paragraph from Man’s Search for Meaning, a book by Viktor Frankl, chronicling experiences as an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate . The tweet shows a thumb at the bottom of the page. One sentence is in italics “The salvation of a man is through love and in love”.

Yesterday the double amputee, known as Bladerunner, tweeted a photo montage of himself helping children, some with prosthetic limbs and accompanied by the words: “You have the ability to make a difference in someone’s life. Sometimes it’s the simple things you can say or do that make someone feel better or inspire them”.

The South African Paralympic and Olympic athlete has not tweeted since his trial began in March. He last tweeted on the first anniversary of Steenkamp’s death February 14th this year. It was his first tweet since he killed Reeva Steenkamp in 2013 by firing a gun through a closed toilet door in his home.

Pistorius has pleaded not guilty to the murder. Pistorius says he killed Ms Steenkamp by mistake, thinking an intruder was in the toilet and about to attack him. The prosecution says he shot her after a Valentine’s Day argument last year.

The defence has closed its case and final arguments are scheduled for August 7th and 8th.