The State’s appeal for the acquittal of murder charges against culpable homicide-convicted Oscar Pistorius would be heard in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein in November, the registrar said.
“A date will be fixed for the November 2015 term for this matter,” registrar of the Supreme Court of Appeal Paul Myburgh confirmed in an email to African News Agency.
More details were not immediately available.
On March 13, Judge Thokozile Masipa, who convicted Pistorius for culpable homicide, dismissed an application by his defence to withdraw the appeal and said there was nothing new in the counsel’s submissions and it would be tantamount to reviewing her own decision.
Pistorius lost a court bid to prevent the state from appealing his conviction in the Supreme Court of Appeal.
“I am not satisfied that this is the correct court to hear this application,” said Judge Thokozile Masipa in the High Court in Johannesburg at the time.
“For one thing, there is really nothing new in the submissions by counsel for the applicant. In my view to entertain this application will be tantamount to reviewing my own decision… Accordingly, the order that I grant in this matter, is to strike off the application.”
The paralympian’s lawyers wanted to appeal Masipa’s decision granting the state leave to appeal his conviction in the Supreme Court of Appeal.
Pistorius was convicted in September, of culpable homicide for shooting dead his law-graduate girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Steenkamp was killed when Pistorius fired four shots through the locked door of the toilet in his Pretoria home on Valentine’s Day 2013, apparently thinking she was an intruder. He was jailed for five years.
Source: African News Agency
