But that manslaughter conviction was overturned previous year by South Africa’s Supreme Court, which convicted Pistorius of the more serious charge of murder.
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State prosecutors who lodged the appeal say Pistorius meant to kill Steenkamp and that the law graduate and model had fled to the toilet during an argument.
Prosecutors, seeking a long jail term for the double-amputee Olympic runner after his conviction was changed to murder for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, immediately challenged that opinion of Pistorius.
During his trial, he testified he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder hiding in his bathroom and fired shots with his 9mm pistol in self-defence as he feared an attack. I feel that Oscar has to pay for what he did. “That is what I think of, all the time”.
Today the high court in Pretoria reconvenes for the second day of the sentencing hearing for Oscar Pistorius. For one, they charged that Pistorius confronted a police witness in an aggressive manner at the courthouse on an earlier occasion.
Nel also disputed a claim by the psychologist that Pistorius was traumatised after he saw a prisoner who had hanged himself, saying it was unlikely that he could have seen the victim.
“June grieves like I do all the time”.
Pistorius was initially sent to jail for five years for culpable homicide, and spent a year behind bars in Pretoria before being granted parole and being released in October last year. “I hear her at night, I hear her crying, I hear her talking to Reeva”, he said, adding that June had tried to forgive Pistorius to help her cope with the loss of her daughter.
His lawyers are arguing for some leniency from a judge when she decides his sentence.
Pistorius was now “despondent and lethargic, disinvested, and leaves his future in the hands of God”, Scholtz said.
Members of the Women’s League of the ruling African National Congress party, who have attended the trial in support of the murdered Steenkamp clad in their green and black uniform, said Pistorius should face the prescribed sentence.
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Pistorius has always denied killing Steenkamp in a rage and, during his dramatic seven-month trial in 2014, vomited in the dock as details of his lover’s death were examined in excruciating detail.
