SAN FRANCISCO, November 24, (THEWILL) – South Africa’s Supreme Court, on Friday, extended Oscar Pistorius’ murder sentence to 13 years after the state argued that the original jail term of six years for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was shockingly lenient.
The gold medal-winning athlete, known as the ‘Blade Runner’ for his carbon-fiber prosthetics, was not in court to hear the new sentence of 13 years and five months handed down.
Steenkamp’s family were also absent but welcomed the sentence — the minimum 15 years prescribed for murder, minus the time Pistorius has already served — and said it showed justice could prevail in South Africa.
“This is an emotional thing for them. They just feel that their trust in the justice system has been confirmed this morning,” Tania Koen, a family spokeswoman, told Reuters.
Rights groups in a country beset by high levels of violent crime against women say Pistorius, 31, received preferential treatment compared to non-whites and those without his wealth or celebrity status.
Barry Steenkamp, the father of the slain model, told SABC television the family could now get on with their lives.
“I always, from the beginning, said justice had not been served, now it has,” he said.
In the same interview, her mother June Steenkamp said: “We felt that we didn’t have justice for Reeva by that too-lenient sentence but now we have justice for her.”
However, Pistorius’ elder brother Carl wrote on Twitter: “Shattered. Heartbroken. Gutted.”
THEWILL recalls that the athlete was jailed in July last year after being found guilty on appeal of murdering model and law graduate Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013 by firing four shots through a locked bathroom door.
He had originally been found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in jail.
That conviction was increased to murder by the Supreme Court in December 2015 and his sentence extended to six years by trial judge Thokozile Masipa in July last year.
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