South Africa’s top appeals court has overturned a lesser judgement and convicted superstar athlete Oscar Pistorius of murder – agreeing with prosecutors who say he meant to kill when he shot dead his girlfriend.
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The appeals court that overturned the culpable homicide charge and instead found Pistorius guilty of murder didn’t have an issue with the lower court’s interpretation of the facts of the case, but rather its interpretation of the law. He did not specify when that should happen.
The court said that Pistorius, who has said repeatedly that he accidentally killed his girlfriend when he believed his home had been broken into, should have foreseen that his actions would cause the death of a person.
The Supreme Court upgraded the 29-year-old Paralympian’s sentence on appeal to murder from culpable homicide, for which he had received a five-year sentence.
Under the original conviction of culpable homicide, Mr. Pistorius was given a five-year jail sentence, but was allowed to apply for parole after one year.
Earlier in October, Pistorius was released on parole and put under house arrest at his uncle’s house after serving nearly a year in prison.
State lawyers said they would aim to show that the high court not only approached the circumstantial evidence incorrectly, but also incorrectly excluded relevant evidence.
Steenkamp left Pistorius a Valentine’s gift that he would only open months later, with a card telling him she loved him.
He said during his trial that he mistook her for an intruder when he opened fire at the locked door of his bedroom toilet.
Pistorius, whose lower legs were amputated when he was a baby but who went on to become a global sporting hero, was not at the court session in Bloemfontein, about 400 kilometres south-west of Johannesburg.
“The identity of his victim is irrelevant to his guilt”, the judge said.
Thursday’s verdict read by Leach said that Pistorius “must have foreseen the potentially fatal consequences of his actions”, something that makes an accused guilty of murder in South African law under the concept of “dolus eventualis”. Pistorius was not there.
In a statement, the Steenkamp’s family said justice had now been done following the death of South African supermodel’s Reeva on Valentine’s Day in 2013. “I feel it’s a fair decision that the judge gave”, Barry said in a brief interview on local television station ANN7, before breaking down in tears.
Anneliese Burgess, the Pistorius family’s spokeswoman, said the family would wait for lawyers’ advice on what to do next. “The legal team will study the finding and we will be guided by them in terms of options going forward”.
A date for the former athlete’s new sentencing will be announced in Pretoria, where he had been tried and imprisoned.
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The defence argues that Oscar Pistorius has already served the period of imprisonment imposed by the trial court, so the conviction should stand.
