What was uncertain, however, was whether he meant to do it.
Advertisement
“He ought to have been convicted not of culpable homicide… but of culpable murder”, the judge added. The top countries to report on the SCA’s ruling included the USA with 21.7% coverage, South Africa with 18.4%, the United Kingdom with 16.3% coverage and Germany which spent 12.3% of its news coverage on the athlete.
In a statement after the appeal hearing Barry Steenkamp, Reeva’s father, said: “I am sure that Reeva is up there watching it and now she’s saying “justice was done”.
But prosecutors said he should be convicted of murder for firing four shots through a locked toilet door.
Prosecutors have been engaged in deliberations since the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein overturned Judge Thokozile Masipa’s sentence on Thursday. Under South African law, there are two forms of dolus – directus and eventualis.
Leach said regardless of who might have behind the door, Pistorius should have known someone could be killed if he fired.
“This case involves a human tragedy of Shakespearean proportions”, Judge Eric Leach said as he read out the ruling.
Pistorius killed Steenkamp at the peak of his fame, and he has since lost his glittering sports career, lucrative contracts and status as a global role model for the disabled.
That still might not be enough to keep the double-amputee South African behind bars for the minimum 15-year sentence that awaits him, The Guardian reported.
She must now re-sentence Pistorius, who is currently out on parole after serving less than a year of his original five-year sentence.
Former England cricket captain Kevin Pieterseon has welcomed the paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius has had his culpable homicide conviction upgraded to murder. After less than a year, under cover of darkness and without public notice, Pistorius was transferred from his prison cell in the medical ward of a Pretoria prison to his uncle’s lavish home – a red-bricked house with landscaped lawns in an affluent suburb. That sentence, on the other hand, was stopped when he was discharged from jail following one year and set on house capture in October. The appeals court can also order a retrial or rule that the manslaughter conviction was correct.
Advertisement
“We are trying to arrange with the North Gauteng High Court that he appears before court where the matter will be formally postponed for sentencing”.
