South Africa’s state prosecutors will appeal the culpable
homicide conviction and five-year jail sentence handed down last week on
Olympic and Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius, the National Prosecuting
Authority (NPA) has said.
“Oscar Pistorius judgement, NPA will be appealing both the
conviction and sentence,” NPA spokesman Nathi Mncube said on his Twitter feed.
Pistorius, whose lower legs were amputated as a baby but who
ran on carbon fibre prosthetic limbs, was convicted of culpable homicide last
month for the shooting of Reeva Steenkamp, a 29-year-old law graduate and
model, at his Pretoria home.
Prosecutors failed to prove murder after the athlete said he
fired in the mistaken belief an intruder was hiding behind the door.
Judge Thokozile Masipa’s ruling drew criticism from some
legal experts who said she had made an error in her interpretation of the legal
concept of “dolus eventualis”, whereby a person is held accountable for the
foreseeable consequences of their actions.
Other lawyers said her verdict was sound.
In South Africa, an appeal by the state against a verdict
can only be made on a matter of law, and does not involve a retrial or the
submission of any new evidence.
No comments:
Post a Comment