The Supreme Court last Thursday upgraded the 29-year-old athlete’s sentence to murder from “culpable homicide”, South Africa’s equivalent of manslaughter, for which he had received a five-year sentence.
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Pistorius spent one year of a five-year sentence in jail for the lesser offense and then was put under house arrest at his uncle’s mansion in Pretoria in October.
The Paralympian will have to be in court by 9:30 tomorrow morning when his bail application is scheduled to start. “His (earlier) conviction has been overturned so his sentence from before has been scrapped, now he has to apply for bail”, Lusanda Ntuli, spokeswoman for the justice ministry, told AFP.
Eyewitness News understands that prosecutor Gerrie Nel and defence advocate Barry Roux have been in talks since Friday to reach an agreement on bail.
He also explaind that the date of sentencing will depend on the diary of the presiding officer. The appeals court imposed a murder verdict and sent the case back to High Court for sentencing.
The SCA’s ruling came nearly three years after Pistorius shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp, later stating he mistook her for an intruder.
The appeal decision, read by judge Eric Leach, said that it was “inconceivable that a rational person could have believed he was entitled to fire at this person with a heavy calibre firearm”.
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The NPA has said it wanted the process to be concluded as soon as possible.
