A South African court has increased Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius’s jail sentence for killing his girlfriend to 13 years and five months.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors had argued that the six-year term for murdering Reeva Steenkamp was “shockingly light”.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Ms Steenkamp’s family said the ruling “verified there was justice”.<\/p>\n
Pistorius claimed he shot dead Ms Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day in 2013 after mistaking her for a burglar.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein has now given him the minimum 15 years prescribed for murder in South Africa, less time already served.<\/p>\n
The lower court had justified the six-year sentence by citing mitigating circumstances such as rehabilitation and remorse.<\/p>\n
It said they outweighed aggravating factors such as his failure to fire a warning shot.<\/p>\n
The athlete was not in court to hear the decision.<\/p>\n
He was initially given a five-year term for manslaughter in 2014, but was found guilty of murder on appeal in 2015.<\/p>\n
Pistorius shot Ms Steenkamp four times through a locked toilet door at his home in the capital Pretoria.<\/p>\n
Previously, the six-time Paralympic gold medallist had made history by becoming the first amputee sprinter to compete at the Olympics, in 2012 in London, running on prosthetic “blades”.<\/p>\n
He had his legs amputated below the knee as a baby.<\/p>\n
Source: BBC News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A South African court has increased Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius’s jail sentence for killing his girlfriend to 13 years and five months. Prosecutors had argued that the six-year term for murdering Reeva Steenkamp was “shockingly light”. A spokesman for Ms Steenkamp’s family said the ruling “verified there was justice”. Pistorius claimed he shot dead Ms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":16691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-foreign-jurisdiction"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t