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Image: Themba Hadebe
Image: Themba Hadebe
A SOUTH AFRICAN JUDGE today rejected the state’s appeal seeking a longer sentence for Paralympian Oscar Pistorius who is serving a six year term for killing his girlfriend three years ago.
Judge Thokozile Masipa said in the High Court in Johannesburg that she was not persuaded there was a “reasonable prospect of success on appeal”.
“I grant the following order: the application for leave to appeal against the sentence is dismissed with costs,” said Masipa.
Push for a longer sentence
South African prosecutors were pushing for a longer sentence stating the jail term for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was “disturbingly inappropriate”.
“The sentence of six years is shockingly lenient and disturbingly inappropriate,” prosecutor Gerrie Nel argued in court, as the state sought permission to appeal the sentence handed to the athlete last month.
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.
At his sentencing in July, High Court judge Thokozile Masipa listed mitigating factors for giving him less than half the minimum 15-year term for murder, including the athlete’s claim he believed he was shooting an intruder.
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“I’m of the view that a long term of imprisonment will not serve justice,” Masipa said.
But Nel argued that the six-year sentence was flawed and that it should be appealed.
Pistorius’s defence said it was an “insult” to suggest that the court’s sentencing had been flawed and that it was time the case came to a close.
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