03 November 2017•Update: 03 November 2017
By Hassan Isilow
JOHANNESBURG
State prosecutors Friday sought to increase the jail sentence of former Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius who is currently serving a six-year sentence for the murder of his girlfriend.
Prosecutor Andrea Johnson told the Supreme Court of Appeal in the city of Bloemfontein that it should consider the brutal way Pistorius used to murder Reeva Steenkamp.
She described the six-year jail sentence as light and said it should be changed to 15 years, which corresponds to the minimum for murder in South Africa.
Last year, Pretoria High court Judge Thokozile Masipa said she had considered a number of factors in delivering what she considered to be a fair sentence to the athlete, including his remorse for the crime and his apology to the Steenkamp family in the court.
Pistorius, 30, was initially sentenced to five years in prison for manslaughter in 2014. He later had his conviction overturned in 2015 when state lawyers appealed the case after which he was released on parole after serving just a year in prison.
The Supreme Court of Appeal determined he was guilty of murdering Steenkamp and ordered a fresh sentence.
The athlete killed his girlfriend in February 2013, when he fired a handgun four times through a locked toilet door in his home in Pretoria.
Pistorius’s legal representative Barry Roux said Friday that Pistorius was remorseful for what he had done.
He said he fired the four shots into the closed toilet door because he was afraid there was an intruder in the house.
“He has a serious disability, and on the night of the incident he was not on his prosthetic legs,” he said, adding that Pistorius also suffered from anxiety.
Pistorius, a double amputee, known as Blade Runner for his athletic achievements, maintains he mistook his girlfriend for an intruder when he opened fire in their Pretoria home.
Pistorius won a gold medal at the Athens Paralympic Games at the age of 17, turning him into a national hero. In 2012, he became the first amputee runner to compete in the Olympics. Judgment in Friday’s appeal is expected to be delivered at a later date.
