Court rejects state appeal of Pistorius murder sentence

By Hassan Isilow

JOHANNESBURG

A South African judge dismissed Friday a state effort to impose a harsher sentence on former Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius for the 2013 murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

Judge Thokozile Masipa said she was not persuaded that there were reasonable prospects of success for an appeal to succeed in the case.

“The application for leave to appeal against sentence is dismissed with costs,” Masipa said in a short verdict at the South Gauteng High court.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) had blasted the six-year sentence as “shockingly too lenient” and “disturbingly inappropriate”.

Last month, when giving Pistorius six years, Masipa said she had considered a number of factors in delivering a fair sentence.

She said Pistorius’s remorse for the crime and his apology to the Steenkamp family was a factor in her judgment.

But state prosecutor advocate Gerrie Nel said it was wrong for the court to consider Pistorius a good candidate for rehabilitation because he had not expressed real remorse.

The state said murder is a serious offense and the athlete should have been given a harsher jail sentence. Fifteen years is the recommended minimum for murder in South Africa.

“I see a lot of prejudice against the accused coming from the state,” defense lawyer Barry Roux told the court before the sentence was upheld.

He wondered aloud why the state had not immediately appealed the sentence when it was handed down.

Roux said the trial and process has been exhausting and requested that the judge dismiss the state’s application with costs.

Pistotrius, 29, was initially sentenced to five years for manslaughter in 2014.

In December 2015, after he served one year in prison and was released on parole, the Supreme Court of Appeal overturned his previous conviction, upgrading it to murder and ordering a fresh sentence.

The athlete killed his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day 2013, when he fired a handgun four times through a locked bathroom door at his Pretoria home.

The double amputee, known as the Blade Runner for his athletic achievements, maintains he mistook his girlfriend for an intruder when he opened fire.

Pistorius won a gold medal at the Athens Paralympic Games at age 17, turning him into a national hero. In 2012, he became the first amputee runner to compete in the Olympics.