Bid to overturn Oscar’s ‘lenient’ term

THE Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein is all geared-up to hear legal arguments in the State’s appeal against Oscar Pistorius’ sixyear jail sentence.

The streets leading to the historical court were yesterday lined with posters announcing the appeal today.

In December 2015, television trucks were there on the eve of the State’s appeal against Pistorius’ conviction on culpable homicide, but the media hype seems to have worn off a bit. By late yesterday, only a lone media truck was parked outside the court. It is, however, expected that ANC Women’s League members will support the parents of Reeva Steenkamp, killed by Pistorius on Valentine’s Day 2013.

June and Barry Steenkamp have said they were set on attending today’s proceedings.

This is the second time the parties head to the SCA after the prosecution felt aggrieved by Judge Thokozile Masipa’s verdict following his trial in the Pretoria High Court.

The first time was to overturn the judge’s culpable homicide verdict following the kill- ing of Steenkamp.

The State succeeded in that appeal when the SCA replaced it with a verdict of murder and referred it back to the trial court for sentencing. Judge Masipa sentenced Oscar for a second time and in July last year he started to serve his sixyear jail term.

The State is however set on appealing against the “shockingly lenient sentence”. The prosecution will argue that Judge Masipa had “undue sympathy” for Pistorius.

The sentence, according to the State, was not only shockingly lenient, but also “startlingly” and “disturbingly inappropriate”. Pistorius, serving his term in Atteridgeville Correctional Centre, shot Steenkamp four times in the early hours of the morning behind the door of the toilet in his then Pretoria home. He maintained throughout that he mistook her for an intruder.

The prosecution team has listed more than 30 points why it believed the judge erred when she resentenced him.

“The sentence of six years does not adequately reflect the seriousness of the crime of murder and the outrage of the public, it argues.