The Constitutional Court has dismissed former Paralympian Oscar Pistorius’s appeal to his 13-year sentence for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
According to an order dated 28 March by the Constitutional Court, the application for condonation and appeal to leave were considered. It concluded that the application for condonation should be granted, but the application for leave to appeal should be dismissed, as it did not engage with the court’s jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein increased the former Paralympian’s sentence to 13 years and five months in prison for the brutal murder in 2013.
The Constitutional Court said that Pistorius should have been sentenced to 15 years, but the SCA took into account the time he had already served in prison.
The world-renowned athlete was arrested on Valentine’s Day in 2013, which is the very same day on which the murder took place. He fired four shots through the bathroom door of his Pretoria home, claiming that he believed that an intruder was present in the home. The shots killed Steenkamp who was in the toilet cubicle at his home.
The North Gauteng High Court Judge Thokozile Masipa initially sentenced Pistorius to five years for culpable homicide in 2014. He served only 10 months of this sentence before being placed under house arrest.
The State later appealed the culpable homicide conviction, and this was replaced with murder by SCA in 2016. Masipa handed town a six-year jail term for murder. The State then petitioned the SCA directly, with the argument that a six-year jail sentence was much too lenient.
The papers for Pistorius’ final sentence were served on Monday, 9 April 2018.
ConCourt order, dismissing Oscar Pistorius’ application for leave to appeal. pic.twitter.com/VeV4lE0bKK
— Bulelwa Makeke (@BulelwaMak) April 9, 2018
Picture: Twitter