In a statement the Pistorius family said: “We have taken note of the judgement that has just been handed down by the Supreme Court of Appeal”.
Advertisement
Pistorius killed his girlfriend in February 2013 after shooting four times through a locked toilet door. We want to say to men out there: “Let the killings of women stop”, ANC Women’s League Free State Provincial chair Mapaseka Nkoane said.
The principle of eventualis rests on the idea that the perpetrator may have foreseen that someone would be killed by their actions, and went ahead. The culpable homicide verdict implied that the crime was not premeditated. “The real punchline of this judgment was actually the reversal of Judge Masipa’s factual finding on putative private defence”. “That should have been the conviction of the trial court”, Mahlatsi Malaka, a private advocate in Bloemfontein said.
Pistorius, a multiple Paralympic champion, became the first amputee to run at the Olympics and the able-bodied world championships. June Steenkamp, Reeva’s mother, was seen sobbing on the stairs of the court in Bloemfontein after the judgment was read out.
She must now give Pistorius a new sentence, likely to be in the new year.
It’s a big relief. Prosecutors alleged the two had a fight and he shot Steenkamp intentionally through the door of the bathroom cubicle.
A lower court must hand Pistorius a new sentence and the responsibility normally falls to the original trial judge.
“All is destroyed when he takes her life”, Judge Leach said.
He may make his own appeal to the Constitutional Court – the country’s highest court. But to get his case heard, his legal team would have to prove that either; his rights had been infringed in the way the trial was heard, or that re-examining it is in the national interest.
He said that he hoped that now both his family and Pistorius’s could finally move forward from a tragedy and the resulting case.
♦ Born: Nov 22, 1986 in Johannesburg.
His legs were amputated below the knees when he was 11 months old because he was born without fibula bones due to a congenital defect. He has popularly been called the “Blade Runner” because of the prosthetic blades he used for running.
According to statistics provided by media monitoring agency ROi Africa, 89% of SA’s social media activity in the last 24 hours was about Pistorius.
The Supreme Court dismissed prosecutors’ attempt to change his conviction for culpable homicide to the more serious charge of murder.
♦ Pistorius starts his fiveyear jail sentence on Oct 21, 2014.
Judge Thokozile Masipa convicted him of culpable homicide, or negligent killing, but acquitted him of murder.
Pistorius has already served about a year in prison and is now under house arrest for the previous conviction.
Pistorius has been under house arrest at his uncle’s residence since being released from prison in October after serving a year.
There was initial confusion in the court when the judge preceded his reading of the Pistorius ruling by saying an appeal had been dismissed; although he was referring to a separate legal case, some news organizations incorrectly reported that Pistorius had not been convicted of murder.
Advertisement
“At the outset he stated that he fired four shots “before I knew it” and at a time when he was not sure if there was somebody in the toilet”.
