Africa: South African Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius has been sentenced to six years in prison for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013.
A South African judge today pronounced the sentence -- closing yet another chapter in a case that sent shockwaves through out the world.
The verdict comes after his initial five-year conviction for manslaughter was changed to murder last December on appeal.
In an hour-long judgment, Judge Masipa said evidence she had heard convinced her Pistorius was “not a violent person”, was unlikely to reoffend and had showed remorse. The judge said she had to balance the interests of society, the accused and relatives of the victim.
Pistorius, she said, was “a fallen hero, who has lost his career, and been ruined financially. He cannot be at peace.”
In delivering her decision, Masipa said she had considered both aggravating and mitigating factors, and concluded that the latter outweighed the former.
She listed mitigating factors as:
* Pistorius was vulnerable on his stumps without his protheses.
* He believed the person in the bathroom was an intruder.
* He “immediately took steps to try to save the deceased’s life”.
* The judge believed he was genuinely remorseful.
She said the aggravating factors were:
* Pistorius used a lethal weapon, with high-grade ammunition.
* He fired four times, “knowing full well” there was someone in the bathroom.
* He did not take the precaution of firing a warning shot.
There's only one person who will ever know precisely what transpired in Pistorius' home that day.
The prosecution said Pistorius had a violent streak, and that he murdered his lover after a late-night argument.
But the defense has always maintained that the amputee track star mistook Steenkamp for an intruder and feared for his life when he shot through the door.
The sentencing is the latest act of a three-and-a-half year legal drama that has often played out on live television and shown the fall from grace of a runner once viewed as an inspiration to many for overcoming his disability. Pistorius had both legs amputated below the knees when he was 11 months old because of a congenital defect.
He made history by running at the 2012 Olympics on his carbon-fiber running blades, and was one of the world's most recognizable athletes.
Pistorius killed Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and reality TV star, in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine's Day in 2013 by shooting her multiple times through a toilet cubicle door in his home. Pistorius maintained he killed Steenkamp by mistake thinking she was an intruder hiding in the bathroom.
