Paralympian Oscar Pistorius is guilty of murder, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein ruled on Thursday.
Judge Eric Leach, reading out a unanimous ruling by a panel of five judges, overturned Pistorius’s culpable homicide conviction, saying he was “guilty of murder, with the accused having had criminal intent in the form of dolus eventualis”.
The SCA found Pretoria High Court Judge Thokozile Masipa erred in her application of the legal principle of dolus eventualis when she acquitted him on a charge of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013.
The SCA found that Pistorius must have reasonably foreseen that firing not one, but four shots, with a high-calibre pistol into a tiny bathroom would have led to death.
“In doing so, he must have foreseen, and did foresee the person behind the door might be fatally injured,” Leach said.
The SCA has referred the matter back to the High Court in Pretoria so Pistorius can be sentenced for murder.
Steenkamp’s mother June was present in court, but left without speaking to reporters shortly after the judgement was concluded.
-African News Agency (ANA)
