JUDGE Thokozile Masipa is expected to announce Oscar Pistorius’s new sentence today.
The double-amputee and ex-Paralympic star is facing a possible 15-year jail term after his conviction was changed to murder for shooting girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013.
The sentencing could be the final act in a legal drama that has rolled on for three-and-a-half years, and often fascinated the world with the fall from grace of a famous athlete who was once an inspiration to many.
Both the prosecution and Pistorius’s defence team have the opportunity to appeal any sentence handed down by Judge Masipa.
Fifteen years in jail is the minimum sentence for murder in South Africa. However, as always with Pistorius’s dramatic case, nothing is certain.
Judge Masipa could decide on a reduced sentence if she thinks there are compelling reasons to be lenient.
At his 2014 trial, Pistorius was acquitted of murder – by Judge Masipa – and instead found guilty of culpable homicide, an unintentional but still negligent killing similar to manslaughter. Then, the judge sentenced Pistorius to five years in prison. He was released to house arrest after serving one year.
But following an appeal by prosecutors to the Supreme Court of Appeal, Pistorius was convicted of the more serious charge of murder, leading to a new sentencing.
At the murder trial two years ago, Judge Masipa partly believed Pistorius’s story that he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder hiding in a bathroom in his home in the middle of the night.
He claimed he shot four times through a toilet cubicle door in fear for his life, only realising afterwards it was Steenkamp. Judge Masipa’s original verdict of manslaughter was overruled by the Supreme Court of Appeal last year and now she must sentence Pistorius again – this time for the crime of murder.