Oscar Pistorius sentenced to 6 years for murdering own girlfriend

PanARMENIAN.Net - Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee sprinter who rose to worldwide fame for overcoming his disability to compete in the 2012 Olympic Games, was sentenced on Wednesday, July 6 to six years in prison for murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, inside his home in 2013, The News York Times reports.

Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa of the High Court in Pretoria cited “mitigating” factors in handing out a sentence that was significantly shorter than the 15-year minimum requested by prosecutors.

Pistorius, the judge said, had shown genuine remorse in trying, repeatedly and unsuccessfully, to apologize in person to the victim’s parents.

Pistorius, 29, who had looked down in an expressionless stare while the judge read the sentence, showed no emotion when he was asked to rise and listen to the sentencing. Neither did Steenkamp’s family react in the courtroom.

The sentencing brought to an apparent close a trial that transfixed much of this nation for years, featuring a young, handsome man whose inspiring story once spoke to the youthful hopes of post-apartheid South Africa, NYT says.

Pistorius’s fall — as well as the unsettling questions the trial raised about violence against women and the racial fears lurking behind the murder — occurred in a country increasingly disaffected with the post-apartheid order and its architect, the long-governing African National Congress.

Pistorius will have to serve half of his term before being eligible for parole.