impose the new murder sentence.
“
The accused should have been found guilty of murder” said Leach, in the courtroom.
In South Africa, a murder charge carries a minimum punishment of 15 years but their laws allow lesser sentences be imposed in ‘exceptional circumstances.’
If you remember, despite prosecutor’s argument that Pistorious killed his girlfriend during an argument, Pistorious asserts he fired shots at the door of a toilet cubicle of his home, thinking an intruder had broken in, when in fact; it was his girlfriend Reeva in receipt of the deadly bullets that took her life that fateful Valentines Day morning in 2013.
The 29 year-old’s lawyers argued that due to the Olympic champion’s disability, he should be shown leniency.
Under the South African law “dolus entualis” if it is foreseen that someone could possibly die through someone else’s actions, they can be convicted of murder. So despite Pistorious; claims [that] he ‘thought’ it was an intruder (which led him to fire the shots), regardless it being Reeva, an intruder (or not); under “dolus entualis”, he could will be
