In an explosive turn of events in court this morning, the Olympian’s conviction was upgraded to murder, overthrowing the earlier manslaughter ruling.
Currently serving five years for killing his model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentine’s Day 2013, Pistorius has been under house arrest since October.
But after the shock move today, the 29-year-old will have to return to court to be re-sentenced for murder, which carries a minimum term of 15 years.
South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that a point of law - dolus eventualis - was not correctly applied during the first trial, that lasted most of 2014.
The aim of this point of law is to determine whether the defendant KNEW that a death would likely result in his actions of shooting through a locked bathroom door. As the Prosecution argued, this was a highly likely outcome of Pistorius's actions and therefore he should be convicted of murder.
A panel of judges examined the appeal, with Justice Lorimer Leach reading out their decision this morning.
He stated that Pistorius’s decision to arm himself with a high calibre weapon, and shoot through the door, means he must have forseen that someone could die - and that the identity of that person was irrelevant
This destroyed the main thrust of Pistorius's defence - which was that he fired through the door believing an intruder to be in his home. In the end, this proved not to be important, with the law only being concerned with his knowledge that someone could be harmed.
‘He did not know whether that person constituted any threat,’ Leach said of Pistorius’s decision to fire.
‘It is inconceivable that a rational person thought he was entitled to fire at this person with a heavy-duty firearm.’
Leach slammed Oscar’s testimony further, going so far as to call it ‘vacillating and untruthful.’
The first paragraph of the ruling read:
‘This case involves a human tragedy of Shakespearean proportions: a young man overcomes huge physical disabilities to reach Olympian heights as an athlete; in doing so he becomes an international celebrity; he meets a young woman of great natural beauty and a successful model; romance blossoms; and then, ironically on Valentine’s Day, all is destroyed when he takes her life.
‘The issue before this court is whether in doing so he committed the crime of murder, the intentional killing of a human being, or the lesser offence of culpable homicide, the negligent killing of another.’
The date for Pistorius’s court return has not yet been set.