Paralympic champ Pistorius appeal to be heard in Nov

PanARMENIAN.Net - The State’s appeal against former paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius's culpable homicide conviction will be heard by the Supreme Court of Appeal in November, according to News 24.

In August, a judge would determine the exact November date.

Before then, the record of Pistorius’s trial and the State and defense’s heads of argument needed to be filed, court registrar Paul Myburgh said on Monday, June 8.

In March this year Judge Thokozile Masipa rejected the bid by Pistorious’s lawyers to stop the State from appealing her finding that Pistorius was guilty of culpable homicide. The State wants him convicted of the more serious charge of murder, which carries a heavier sentence.

In December 2014, Masipa granted the State leave to appeal her culpable homicide conviction, saying it was based on her interpretation of the law. Appeals can be granted based on questions of law, not on the interpretation of the facts of the matter.

Masipa however dismissed the State’s application to appeal Pistorius’s 5-year-jail sentence.

On September 12, 2014, Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide for shooting dead his model and law-graduate girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. He was found not guilty of murdering her. Masipa also found him guilty of discharging a firearm in a restaurant.

On October 21 that year, Masipa jailed him for five years for killing Steenkamp, and for three years, suspended for five, for the restaurant shooting.

He fired four shots through the locked door of the toilet in his Pretoria home on Valentine's Day 2013, apparently thinking Steenkamp was an intruder hiding inside.

Pistorius could be released on parole in August.