Police Say They Found Testosterone at Home of Pistorius

PRETORIA, South Africa — South African police said on Wednesday that officers found testosterone and needles at the home of Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee track star accused in the killing of his girlfriend, when they went to his home last week to investigate the shooting.

But Mr. Pistorius’s lawyer, challenging detailed points of the police conduct of the investigation, said the substance was an herbal supplement and was not subject to international prohibitions on doping.

... the detective asserted that two boxes of testosterone and needles were found when officers searched Mr. Pistorius’s home in a gated community where his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and law school graduate, was shot to death with four rounds fired through the closed door of a bathroom.

The prosecution did not accuse Mr. Pistorius of directly using or abusing the substance. Testosterone in various forms is among banned substances on the 2013 list of prohibited drugs for athletes issued by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

But Barry Roux, Mr. Pistorius’s defense lawyer, said the substance found at his client’s home did not figure among banned drugs.

It was “not a steroid and it is not a banned substance,” Mr. Roux said, accusing the police of taking “every piece of evidence and try to extract the most possibly negative connotation and present it to the court.”