South African Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius has been found guilty of murder after a South African appeals court overturned an earlier manslaughter verdict.
He killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on 14 February (Valentine’s Day) 2013 after shooting her through a locked door.
He is currently under house arrest after spending ten months of his five year sentence in jail. It is unclear if he will return to prison before being sentenced for murder. He now faces 15 years in prison.
Judge Leach said the appeal hinged on the trial court’s interpretationo of dolus eventualis and if Pistorius could objectively foresee the possibility of his act causing death and persists in the act regardless of the consequences and regardless if he thought Reeva or another person was behind his toilet door when he shot four times into a small cubicle with a high calibre pistol.
