Oscar Pistorious Not Guilty But Not Free
For a long time, once South Africa’s unsung hero Oscar Pistorious better known to the masses as the blade runner has been standing trial for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. The case seemed to have come to a close yesterday with part of the judge’s ruling being read.
Pistorious had never disputed that he shot his girlfriend through the hole of the toilet door and during his court case, he argued that he thought it was an intruder which prompted him to open fire hitting his girlfriend three times and killing her. Pistorious who was emotional through-out the trial breaking down several times even when he was being cross examined showed remorse for the act and went as far as to apologize to the parents of the deceased but that did not do much to relive him of the pressure of the case.
He was forced into 30 days of monitoring by a psychiatric facility which indicated that he was of sound mind and that gave the court the green light to continue with the proceedings.
Judgment day came calling yesterday for the troubled athlete and the judge started on a note that had the troubled athlete sobbing through-out the rest of the hearing. The court found Oscar Pistorious not guilty of murder pre-meditated or otherwise. However the judge did indicate that Pistorious acted with negligence and with excessive force that saw him shoot and kill the 29 year old model.
While this was a sigh of relief to the paralympian, it was short lived as Pistorious was later today pronounced guilty of the lesser charge of culpable murder. This will still see him go to prison but this charge does not have a minimum sentence and could see the paralympian out of prison sooner than everyone thought.
Aside from the murder charge, Pistorious also faced a three charges, two of discharging a firearm in public and one for illegal possession of ammunition. He was found guilty of drawing a gun in a restaurant but the charges do not have a minimum jail time meaning that the paralympian could go scot free for this charge. For the charge of culpable murder which he has been found guilty, there is a maximum jail term of 15 years but as mentioned earlier no minimum jail term meaning that he might also be able to get out on this one. What is left is the sentencing but Oscar’s relatives hinted that no matter the outcome, there were no winners in this case as a life has already been lost.
