Bloemfontein, Dec 4: Oscar Pistorius was convicted of murder on Thursday by South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal, which threw out his earlier conviction on a lesser charge for shooting dead his girlfriend in 2013.
Pistorius is now set to go back to jail after he was released on parole in October having served one year of his five-year sentence for culpable homicide — the equivalent of manslaughter.
The 29-year-old star Paralympic sprinter shot dead Reeva Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, in the early hours of Valentine’s Day two years ago.
He said during his trial that he mistook her for an intruder when he opened fire at the locked door of his bedroom toilet.
Pistorius, who was not be present in court in Bloemfontein, South Africa’s judicial capital, now faces a minimum of 15 years in prison for murder.
Awaiting his new sentence, he is likely to remain under house arrest at his uncle’s mansion in the capital Pretoria.
His trial attracted worldwide attention as he denied killing Steenkamp in a rage after the couple had gone to bed.
