Oscar Pistorius Murder Trial Verdict Update: Guilty of Culpable Homicide
27-year-old Olympic and Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide after fatally shooting his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp through a locked bathroom door on a Valentines day of 2013.
According to the news website, Judge Masipa found that the prosecutors have failed to prove that the sprinter had planned out the murder although they successfully established the fact that Pistorius was being "negligent" and acted "hastily" by firing his gun in fear that there could be an intruder on the other side of the bathroom door in his luxury Pretoria home.
"A reasonable person, therefore, in the position of the accused with similar disability would have foreseen the possibility that whoever was behind the door might be killed by the shots," the judge said.
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Though proven not guilty of premeditated murder, Pistorius was found guilty on one firearms charge when he fired a pistol under a table on a Johannesburg restaurant. He was, however, acquitted on two other firearms charges including illegal possession of ammunition and firing a pistol out on a roof of a car.
The Week further reported that the double amputee could face up to 15 years in jail on the culpable homicide charge. His sentence is due to serve in October.
June, the mother of the dead 29-year-old bikini model, was not convinced of the verdict.
"Justice was not served. I just don't feel this is the right sentence," the grieving mother told the news network NBC. "I won't believe his story and that's the difference."
"I don't care what happens to Oscar," she added. "It's not going to change anything because my daughter is never coming back. He's still living and breathing and she's gone ... forever."
Before the controversies, Oscar Pistrorius is a winner of six gold medals at three Paralympics running events. Nicknamed the "Blade Runner" and using a carbon-fibre prosthetics, Pistorius was once held to be a symbol of "triumph over adversity" and was credited for putting athletes with disabilities to go up against able-bodied runners during the London 2012 Olympics.
