As he prepares to leave prison to serve the remainder of his sentence for killing Steenkamp under correctional supervision, the State is asking that he be convicted of murder.
Pistorius will leave Kgosi Mampuru II Prison (the former Pretoria Central Prison) this Friday. He only served 10 months of his five-year jail sentence.
Meanwile the State says in court papers before the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein that the only reasonable verdict in the Pistorius trial was murder and not culpable homicide, as earlier ruled in Pretoria by Judge Thokozile Masipa.
IOL.com reports Gerrie Nel will argue in November that Section 322 of the Criminal Procedure Act paved the way for the appeal court itself to convict Pistorius of murder. This section will also empower the appeal court to “order that new proceedings be instituted on the original charge, as if the accused (Pistorius) had not previously been arraigned”.
Nel has indicated that a retrial was not the only option in the Pistorius case, but that the appeal court could directly deal with the matter. Nel will argue that that Masipa had incorrectly applied the principles of dolus eventualis, and that Pistorius should have foreseen that he could kill Steenkamp when he fired four shots through the toilet door.
The main questions will be whether the principle of dolus eventualis was applied correctly by the court. If it is found that Masipa got it wrong, the conclusion must be that Pistorius should have been convicted of murder. Pistorius armed himself and deliberately fired through the locked toilet door saying he thought it was an intruder. In this case Pistorius should be guilty of murdering an ‘intruder’. This is murder with intent.
