South Africa’s Constitutional Court on Thursday rejected Olympian Oscar Pisitorius’ right to appeal against his conviction for the murder of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
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“It has been concluded that the application should be dismissed for lack of prospects of success”, the Constitutional Court said in its order dated March 2.
Pistorius now faces a possible minimum 15-year jail sentence for the murder of his girlfriend.
But the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), which opposed the application, said today that the appeal attempt had failed.
Pistorius will be sentenced on April 17. He was tried for culpable homicide, but in 2015 his lawyer managed to overturn that ruling in December 2015 when he had served just one-year of a five-year sentence.
“We’ll proceed to the sentencing”, defense lawyer Andrew Fawcett said.
Pistorius shot Steenkamp through the door of a toilet cubicle in his home early on Valentine’s Day 2013.
South African paralympian Oscar Pistorius (L) arrives to the Pretoria High court for a bail hearing …
In December, Judge Eric Leach ruled the original court judgment had been “fundamentally flawed”.
But most experts had dismissed his chances of success in the Constitutional Court. He was released from jail in October a year ago.
“I was overcome with fear”, he told his trial.
The decision comes two months after a different court overturned his 2014 conviction of culpable homicide and instead found him guilty of murder.
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He never fired a warning shot and shot not once, but four times.
