The Supreme Court of Appeal has found Oscar Pistorius, pictured, guilty of murdering Steenkamp in 2013, throwing out his earlier conviction on the lesser charge of culpable homicide.
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Pistorius was eligible for parole after serving 10 months of his five-year term for culpable homicide, which was one-sixth of his sentence.
South Africa’s Supreme Court upgraded his conviction from manslaughter to murder amid claims he must have known what he was doing at the time of the incident.
Journalists wait outside the home of Oscar Pistorius’ uncle Arnold Pistorius in Pretoria December 3, 2015.
“We are trying to do this as a matter of extreme urgency”, National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Luvuyo Mfaku told local media Friday.
A date for the sentencing is expected to be set when Pistorius applies for bail. Prosecutors said he killed her after an argument.
“This case involves a human tragedy of Shakespearean proportions”, Leach said while delivering the ruling on behalf of the five-judge appeals court.
At the original trial in September previous year, Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled that the state had failed to prove intent or “dolus eventualis”, a legal concept that centres on a person being held responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their actions.
She must now give Pistorius a new sentence, likely to be in the new year.
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