The trial: No warrant for Oscar Pistorius’ arrest – NPA

After yesterday’s ruling, South African authorities have reportedly issued a warrant of arrest for Pistorius.

“No arrest warrant has been issued”, NPA spokesman Luvuyo Mfaku told AFP on Friday, dismissing local media reports. We are trying to do this as a matter of extreme urgency. A murder conviction normally carries a minimum 15-year jail sentence.

Pistorius can appeal to South Africa’s highest court, the Constitutional Court, but only if he is able to prove that his constitutional right to a fair trial was infringed during the highly publicized hearing, said Witz.

In a written ruling on behalf of a panel of five judges, appeals court Justice Eric Leach summarized the tragedy of the case: “A young man overcomes huge physical disabilities to reach Olympian heights as an athlete; in doing so he (be)comes an global celebrity; he meets a young woman of great natural beauty and a successful model; romance blossoms”.

FILE – In this Thursday, Feb 14, 2013 file photo Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius leaves the Boschkop police station, east of Pretoria, South Africa, while in custody after the shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, at his home.

The heart of the murder case against Oscar Pistorius has relied on a section of South African criminal law known by the Latin term of dolus eventualis. All this would happen ahead of the court’s sentencing proceedings, Mfaku said.

The disgraced Paralympian and Olympian double amputee killed Reeva Steenkamp in the early morning of Valentine’s Day, firing four times into a small locked bathrom cubicle she was inside.

As a matter of common sense at the time the fatal shots were fired, the possibility of the death of the person behind the door was clearly an obvious result.

He is expected to appear before her again in the New Year.

Pistorius left jail on parole in October and was due to spend the rest of his sentence under house arrest.

State prosecutors who lodged the appeal say Pistorius meant to kill Steenkamp and that she fled to a toilet during a row.