Finally, Oscar Pistorius found guilty of murder

That charge was effectively scaled up today by a panel of five South African supreme court judge who concluded that the court had not correctly applied the rule of “dolus eventualis” – criminal intent.

He said during his trial that he mistook her for an intruder when he opened fire at the locked door of his bedroom toilet.

In its ruling, the Appeal Court, said the previous verdict was “confusing and flawed”, arguing that Pistorius was aware of his actions while firing the shots which killed Steenkamp.

State prosecutors launched an appeal calling for him to be convicted of murder instead, and the Supreme Court presented its findings in Bloemfontein, South Africa on Thursday (03Dec15).

137-c-18-(Chris Torchia (TOHR’-shuh), AP correspondent)-“back to jail”-AP correspondent Chris Torchia reports the appeals court ruling leaves Pistorius with little chance of staying out of jail”.

The athlete shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in February 2013.

Pistorius, who is now under house arrest having served one year behind bars, will be re-sentenced at a later date. The appeals court can also order a retrial or rule that the manslaughter conviction was correct.

“All the shots fired through the door would nearly inevitably have struck the person behind it. There would be effectively no place to hide”, Leach said.

This destroyed the main thrust of Pistorius’s defence – which was that he fired through the door believing an intruder to be in his home.

The judge described the events as a “tragedy of Shakespearean proportions”.

“The identity of the person behind the door is irrelevant”. This overturns an earlier conviction of culpable homicide which was handed by the North Gauteng High Court.

Reeva Steenkamp’s mother, June, sat quietly in the courtroom during the announcement, which was carried on TV.

Barry Steenkamp, Reeva’s father, told local media that “his family can hopefully get on with their lives now”. In 2012, the sprinter became the first amputee to compete in the Olympics. He spent one year out of his five-year sentence in jail.