Pretoria: A South African court on Thursday overturned Paralympian Oscar Pistorius’s culpable homicide conviction and essentially charged him with murder for killing his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
In a brief judgment by Judge Eric Leach, Pistorius, 28, was found to have been indirectly murderous in his actions by firing four shots onto a closed bathroom door when not knowing who or if anyone was behind it, Independent Online reported.
Pistorius was convicted at the Pretoria High Court in October 2014 of culpable homicide of Steenkamp, whom he allegedly mistook for an intruder at his Pretoria home on Valentine’s Day 2013.
Justice Lorimer Leach said that having armed himself with a high-calibre weapon, Pistorius must have foreseen that whoever was behind the door might die.
Pistorius’s lawyer argued that he believed that there was an intruder in the house but the judge said the identity of the person behind the door was irrelevant.
The State revealed shortly after the conviction it would attempt to overturn the culpable homicide conviction at the Supreme Court of Appeal in a bid to charge the athlete with murder.
The double amputee was released from prison on October 19 and is currently under house arrest after spending one year of his original five-year sentence in jail.
Pistorius will have to return to court to be re-sentenced for murder.
It was earlier incorrectly reported that the court had ruled the manslaughter verdict would remain.
Pistorius did not attend the hearing.
