Oscar Pistorious Gets Six Years Imprisonment For Reeva SteenKamp’s Murder

Paralympian Oscar Pistorius has been sentenced to six years in prison for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp three years ago. High Court judge Thokozile Masipa said in her ruling on Wednesday that she did not believe the defence witness who said that Pistorius was severely depressed and needed to be hospitalised rather than sent to prison.

The judge said she understood that members of the public would not like her decision, but the punishment needed to fit the crime.

“Public opinion may be loud and persistent, but it can play no role in the decision of this court,” she said.

Pistorius had been freed from prison in the South African capital of Pretoria last October after serving one year of a five-year term for culpable homicide – the equivalent of manslaughter.

But an appeals court upgraded the conviction to murder, which has a mandatory sentence of 15 years.

Pistorius, 29, shot Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine’s Day in 2013, claiming he mistook her for a burglar when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.

Al Jazeera’s Tania Page, reporting from Pretoria, said that the judge seemed to have believed that he had shown remorse.

“She said he apologised to the family [of the victim],” she said. “She believes he’d be a good candidate for full rehabilitation.”

She also said that Pistorious could only one of the six-year sentence with good behaviour if it was not appealed.