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Oscar Pistorius could return to jail on Thursday if South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal scales up the track star’s conviction for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp from manslaughter to murder.
Important points
- Oscar Pistorius’ charge of manslaughter could be upgraded to murder on Thursday
- Track star could return to jail if state’s appeal is effective
- State argued that the presiding judge misinterpreted some components of the law
The Paralympic gold medallist was released on parole in October following serving a fifth of his five-year prison term for the “culpable homicide” of Steenkamp, whom he killed by firing four shots by way of a locked toilet door on Valentine’s Day 2013.
Prosecutors stated Pistorius, 29, need to be convicted of murder and sent back to jail simply because he knew the individual behind the door could be killed when he fired.
A murder conviction would result in a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.
“The judgment will be delivered at 9:45am (6:45pm AEDT) on three December 2015 at the Supreme Court of Appeal,” the court said in a statement.
Pistorius, whose decrease legs had been amputated when he was a infant, denied for the duration of his six-month trial that he deliberately killed Steenkamp, saying he mistook her for an intruder at his home.
Higher Court Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled final year that the state had failed to prove Pistorius had shown “intent” or “dolus eventualis”, a legal notion that centres on a individual becoming held accountable for the foreseeable consequences of their actions.
The state argued at the appeal that Judge Masipa misinterpreted some parts of the law, such as “dolus eventualis”.
If the court of appeal overturns Judge Masipa’s verdict, she will be responsible for passing a new sentence on Pistorius, according to legal experts.
Reuters
Subjects: courts-and-trials, law-crime-and-justice, murder-and-manslaughter, south-africa