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Marco Longari
# South Africa
Oscar Pistorius sentence increased to 13 years and five months
The ruling was made today following an appeal by the State.
OSCAR PISTORIUS HAS been sentenced to 13 years and 5 months in jail – up from an original term of six years.
He was jailed for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Today, the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein more than doubled his original sentence of six years after the state appealed that it was unduly lenient.
Pistorius shot Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, in the early hours of Valentine’s Day in 2013, saying he mistook her for a burglar when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.
He had initially been released from jail to live under house arrest after serving one year of a five-year term, before being sentenced to six years in prison. This was increased today.
At the previous court hearing, the court heard that a murder conviction in South Africa usually has a minimum sentence of 15 years. However, mitigating factors – time already spent in prison, the fact that this is Pistorius’s first offence, the court’s opinion that he is unlikely to reoffend, and his genuine remorse – were taken into account by Judge Thokozile Masipa.
Contains reporting from - © AFP, 2017
