Oscar Pistorius, a convicted murderer, now awaits sentencing

Two, 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.

The sprinter was not in the Supreme Court of Appeal to hear the decision of a five-member strong panel of judges overturn his manslaughter charge who instead imposed the murder conviction. The Pistorius family has said attorneys will provide advice on legal options.

Pistorius was released from jail on October 19 after serving one year of a five-year sentence and is under house arrest.

Pistorius remains with family under house arrest in Pretoria, with a date for the reconvening of the case yet to be announced. Some legal experts have raised the prospect of the athlete’s lawyers appealing the case to the Constitutional Court, the highest court in South Africa, arguing that Pistorius received an unfair trial.

Steenkamp’s mother June, who has said she does not want retribution, attended the court session.

Sentencing would depend specifically on the availability of trial Judge Thokozile Masipa and was likely to happen only next year, Mfaku said.

The Appeal Court said the concept had been incorrectly applied by Judge Masipa in the original trial.

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.

That’s the chance Pistorius took when he fired hollow bullets – created to fragment on impact – from a 9mm pistol through the door of a “very small” toilet cubicle, Leach said.

In today’s ruling, Justice Lorimer Leach said the identity of the person behind the door was irrelevant.

Steenkamp had been inside the couple’s home washroom when Pistorius says he mixed up her for a gatecrasher amidst the night and shot her four times from outside the bolted latrine entryway.

“I needed admiration for my little girl’s life and that is the thing that I got today”, she included. Prosecutors said he killed her after an argument.