JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s public prosecutor said the five-year jail sentence handed down to Oscar Pistorius in his conviction for manslaughter was “inappropriate and shockingly light.”
The National Prosecuting Authority filed an application Tuesday against both the sentence and the verdict, according to court papers. Prosecutor Gerrie Nel argued in an eight-month trial at the High Court in Pretoria, the capital, that the athlete murdered his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, when he fired four hollow-point bullets through a locked toilet door at his home.
“We will argue that the sentence is inappropriate and shockingly light for someone that killed an innocent person with gross negligence where his conduct bordered on Dolus Eventualis,” or murder, Nel and prosecutor Andrea Johnson said in the papers.
Judge Thokozile Masipa cleared Pistorius, 27, of murder charges last month before convicting him of culpable homicide for the death in the early morning hours of Valentine’s Day last year. Pistorius, who says he thought Steenkamp was an intruder in his home, can be transferred to house arrest after spending 10 months in jail, under terms of the sentencing.
An appeal would be heard by a full bench of three High Court judges or be deferred to South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal.
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