South Africa asks appeal court to convict Pistorius of murder
South African paralympian Oscar Pistorius, freed on parole
last month after serving a fifth of his prison term for killing his girlfriend,
faces years more in jail if state lawyers can get his conviction scaled up to
murder from culpable homicide.
Prosecutors will argue before the Supreme Court that a high
court judge was wrong to let Pistorius off the more serious charge after he
fired four shots through a door on Valentine's Day 2013, killing Reeva
Steenkamp.
The 28-year-old track star will not be present at the
one-day hearing in Bloemfontein, 400 km (250 miles) southwest of Johannesburg,
his lawyer Barry Roux told Reuters.
A panel of five judges will hear the appeal, and could
either order a retrial, convict Pistorius of murder themselves or reject the prosecution's
appeal, legal experts have said.
"The (high) court not only approached the circumstantial evidence incorrectly, but also incorrectly excluded relevant evidence," prosecutors said in documents filed at the court.
Pistorius, dubbed "Blade Runner" because of the
carbon fibre prosthetic blades he uses to compete, denied deliberately killing
his girlfriend during his six-month trial, saying he mistook her for an
intruder at his home.
Prosecutors said Pistorius intended to kill Steenkamp, who
they said fled to the toilet during a row.
But high court Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled last year that
the state had failed to prove intent or "dolus eventualis", a legal
concept that centres on a person being held responsible for the foreseeable
consequences of their actions.
The state insists Masipa misinterpreted some parts of the
law and that Pistorius must have known that the person behind the door could be
killed.
A murder conviction would result in a minimum sentence of 15
years in prison.
After the trial last September, Pistorius, a gun enthusiast,
was also convicted of firing a pistol under the table of a Johannesburg
restaurant but was let off on charges of illegal possession of ammunition and
firing a gun out of a car sun-roof.
The athlete was freed two weeks ago in line with South
African sentencing guidelines that say non-dangerous prisoners should spend
only a sixth of a custodial sentence behind bars.
He has not been seen in public since then and is under house
arrest that confines him to his uncle's home in a wealthy Pretoria suburb for
the duration of his sentence.