Oscar Pistorius, convicted of killing girlfriend
Reeva Steenkamp, has been denied leave to appeal.
South Africa’s Constitutional Court on Thursday
rejected Olympian Oscar Pisitorius the right to appeal against his conviction
for the murder of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, television news channel ENCA
reported.
The news station said that the highest court in the
country ruled that Pistorius had no reasonable grounds of success on his
appeal.
His lawyer confirmed the highest court had dismissed
his appeal of murder conviction.
Pistorius now faces a possible minimum 15-year jail
sentence for the murder of his girlfriend.
He shot girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp dead through the
door of a bathroom in his home in Pretoria on Valentine’s Day 2013.
He originally claimed he mistook her for an intruder
when he opened fire at the locked door of his bedroom toilet.
Pistorius applied to appeal to South Africa’s
Constitutional Court in a final bid to overturn his conviction for killing his
partner.
A judge overturned the former Paralympic champion’s
culpable homicide conviction in December 2015.
Pistorius had served one year of his five-year
sentence for culpable homicide (what we call manslaughter in the UK) when was
released from jail in October and placed under house arrest at the home of his
uncle in Pretoria.
The ruling clears the way for a judge to sentence
Pistorius for murder at a hearing scheduled for April 18.
Defence lawyer Andrew Fawcett confirmed the court’s
decision and said: ‘We’ll proceed to the sentencing.’
The minimum sentence for murder in South Africa is
15 years, though a judge can reduce that sentence in exceptional circumstances.
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