{"id":62069,"date":"2014-11-04T14:41:25","date_gmt":"2014-11-04T14:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=62069"},"modified":"2014-11-04T14:41:25","modified_gmt":"2014-11-04T14:41:25","slug":"pistorius-prosecutors-challenge-shockingly-light-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=62069","title":{"rendered":"Pistorius prosecutors challenge ‘shockingly light’ sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s prosecutors have filed an appeal against the “shockingly light” sentence given to athlete Oscar Pistorius, court papers show.<\/p>\n

Last month, Pistorius began serving a five year prison sentence for the culpable homicide of Reeva Steenkamp, although he could be out in 10 months.<\/p>\n

The sentence failed to consider the “horrendous manner” in which Ms Steenkamp was killed, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

[contextly_sidebar id=”i41NfXn3NKORoL0RqtRe9Fydx7RlrB0q”]Prosecutors are also appealing against Pistorius’ murder acquittal.<\/p>\n

The double-amputee Olympic sprinter was charged by the prosecution with the pre-meditated murder of Ms Steenkamp, a model and law graduate.<\/p>\n

He was acquitted of this and the lesser murder charge of dolus eventualis by High Court Judge Thokozile Masipa on 21 October.<\/p>\n

In South African law, this charge – also known as common-law murder – applies if the accused knew they might kill someone but still went ahead with their course of action.<\/p>\n

‘Gruesome’<\/span><\/p>\n

“The appeal on conviction is based on the question of law,” said National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Nathi Mncube in a statement.<\/p>\n

\"<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Reeva Steenkamp had been going out with Pistorius for three months before the fatal shooting<\/div>\n

In papers filed with the North Gauteng High Court and published by South Africa’s Eyewitness News on its website, prosecutor Gerrie Nel said Judge Masipa “erred in over-emphasising the personal circumstances of the accused and the fact that the accused was suffering from post-traumatic stress, was anxious and ‘seems remorseful’.<\/p>\n

“Not enough emphasis was placed on the horrendous manner in which the deceased died coupled with the gruesome injuries she sustained when the accused shot and killed her,” he said.<\/p>\n

Pistorius’ sentence was “shockingly light, inappropriate and would no have been imposed by any reasonable court”, Mr Nel added.<\/p>\n

Ms Steenkamp died after Pistorius fired four shots through a door at his upmarket home in the capital, Pretoria, in the early hours of Valentine’s Day last year, fearing there was an intruder in the house.<\/p>\n

The athlete was also given a three-year suspended sentence for firing a gun in a restaurant.<\/p>\n

The prosecution had called for him to be given the maximum 15-year sentence for culpable homicide, or manslaughter.<\/p>\n

Pistorius is currently serving his sentence in the hospital section of Pretoria’s Kgosi Mampuru II jail.<\/p>\n

He can apply to serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest after 10 months in prison.<\/p>\n

After the verdict, his family said that he would not appeal.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s prosecutors have filed an appeal against the “shockingly light” sentence given to athlete Oscar Pistorius, court papers show. Last month, Pistorius began serving a five year prison sentence for the culpable homicide of Reeva Steenkamp, although he could be out in 10 months. The sentence failed to consider the “horrendous manner” in which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":6789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-62069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}