Arrest warrant for Oscar Pistorius issued after murder conviction

Johann Engelbrecht, a criminal lawyer who is not involved in the Pistorius case, said it is doubtful that the former athlete’s lawyers could challenge the murder conviction by appealing to the Constitutional Court.

Pistorius was found guilty of murder after South Africa’s supreme court of appeals overturned his previous conviction for culpable homicide in the killing of his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Thursday.

Pieterseon had previously expressed his support for the Steenkamp family following the original ruling.

He was convicted of manslaughter previous year after shooting girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, but the conviction was changed to murder by an appeal judge this week.

That still might not be enough to keep the double-amputee South African behind bars for the minimum 15-year sentence that awaits him, The Guardian reported.

The Paralympian was originally convicted of culpable homicide – similar to manslaughter – after a lengthy trial. Pistorius killed Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, in the early hours of Valentine’s Day two years ago, saying he mistook her for an intruder when he shot four times through the locked door of his bedroom toilet.

Ruling that a retrial is unnecessary, the Supreme Court of Appeal sent the case back to the trial court in South Africa’s capital Pretoria for sentencing.

Under that concept, a person can be convicted of murder if he or she foresaw the possibility of someone dying through their actions and went ahead anyway. Under this principle, the identity of the victim should not matter, the judge said. It found he knew what he was doing when he fired and that he understood that a person might die.

Journalists wait outside the home of Oscar Pistorius’ uncle Arnold Pistorius in Pretoria December 3, 2015. He is now expected to receive a new sentence that could include a hefty prison term and potentially a return to the same hospital cell.

“I think it really comes to an end now”, said Witz.