‘Blade runner’ Oscar Pistorius convicted of murdering his girlfriend

South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeals on Thursday declared him guilty of murder, overturning that court’s conviction of manslaughter.

Pistorius has been living with his uncle in Pretoria since being released on house arrest in October, performing community service once a fortnight under his conditions of parole.

Justice Lorimer Leach of the Supreme Court of Appeal delivered the ruling by the five-judge appeals court Thursday in Bloemfontein and said the trial court, the North Gauteng High Court, should impose sentence.

A 15-year prison sentence is the minimum punishment for murder in South Africa. He speculated that prosecutors would want the sentencing process to proceed swiftly rather than let Pistorius remain under house arrest for an extended period.

“The accused’s conviction and sentence on count one are set aside and replaced with the following: guilty of murder, with the accused having had criminal intent in the form of dolus eventualis”.

This ruling is expected to go some way to show that no-one is above the law, not even South Africa’s once beloved “blade runner”.

Pistorius can challenge the opinion in the constitutional court but only when his attorneys can claim that his constitutional rights are broken.

FILE – In this November 4, 2012 file photo, South African Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp arrive for an awards ceremony in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Then, he said this on Pistorius’ guilt.

From the beginning, prosecutors argued that Pistorius’ intruder story was concocted to cover up his murder of Steenkamp.

It’s interesting to read some of the key quotes that came from the ruling – these are the words of Justic Eric Leach who read out the verdict.

She later told Sky News: “I was just emotional…”

At the time, she said in her ruling: “There is no basis for this court to make the inference that the accused wanted to kill the deceased…The conduct of the accused shortly after the incident is inconsistent with someone who had wanted to commit murder”.

“It is inconceivable that a rational person thought he was entitled to fire at this person with a heavy-duty firearm”, said Judge Leach, who described Pistorius’ testimony as “vacillating and untruthful”. We put our faith in the justice system but now we can be assured that we’re going to get justice.

The key to the unanimous decision of five judges: Pistorius, well-trained in weapons, must have known that someone would die when he fired four dummy-nosed bullets into a small toilet cubicle in his bathroom.