Former Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius has filed papers to South Africa's Constitutional Court appealing against his 13-year jail term for shooting dead his girlfriend, a lawyer for the victim's family said yesterday
Former Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius has filed papers to South Africa's Constitutional Court appealing against his 13-year jail term for shooting dead his girlfriend, a lawyer for the victim's family said yesterday. A court last month increased Pistorius' sentence for murdering Reeva Steenkamp to 13 years in the latest stage of a long court battle since his trial in 2014.
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Oscar Pistorius
Pistorius shot dead Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day in 2013 when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet, later saying that he thought she was an intruder. "We respect the law. It is Oscar Pistorius's constitutional right to appeal his sentence. The law must take its course," said Tania Koen, a lawyer for the Steenkamp family.
Pistorius was originally convicted of culpable homicide - the equivalent of manslaughter - but his conviction was upgraded to murder on appeal. Pistorius also tried to take the murder conviction to the Constitutional Court, South Africa's highest tribunal, but it refused to hear the matter. In 2012 Pistorius became the first double-amputee to race at the London Olympics.
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