Supreme Court Convicts Oscar Pistorius of Murder

(AP Photo/Alon Skuy, Pool)

South African Supreme Court has convicted athlete Oscar Pistorius who has been charged with murdering his late girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp and he now faces a minimum of 15 years behind bars.

The Olympic sprinter was not in the Supreme Court of Appeal this morning to hear the damning decision of a five-strong panel of judges.

The 29 year old is now expected to return to court in January for shooting Reeva four times through a toilet door on 2013 Valentines’ day.

Oscar has already spent 1 of his 5 year jail term in prison sell and was released on October 19 and is originally expected to spend the remainder of his jail term under housearrest in his uncle’s mansion in Pretoria.

During the hearing, the court heard Pistorius was considered to have been a ‘very poor’ witness whose version of events changed ‘substantially’.

Judge Leach also said the original judge’s understanding of ‘dolus eventualis’ – awareness of the likely outcome of an action – to be ‘confusing in various respects’.

‘The identify of the victim is irrelevant in this case,’ the judge read, adding that Pistorius ‘gambled with that person’s life.’ ‘Almost all the shots fired through the door would inevitably have struck the deceased. There was nowhere to hide.’

A Pistorius family spokesman said no statement would be released after the verdict this morning.

South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that the lower court did not correctly apply the rule of dolus eventualis – whether Pistorius knew that a death would be a likely result of his actions.

The minimum sentence for murder is 15 years but judges can apply some discretion.

South African law does not make provision for someone to be placed under house arrest for more than five years, so Pistorius will be going back to prison, reports the BBC’s Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg.