South African Paralympics superstar Oscar Pistorius will find out tomorrow whether he will spend the rest of his life in prison for the 2013 murder of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, following a six-month trial.
Pistorius, 27, claims that the shooting, which occurred on Valentine’s Day 2013, was accidental, as he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder when he shot her four times through a locked toilet door. “I was simply trying to protect Reeva,” said Pistorius earlier in the trial. “When she went to bed that night, she felt loved.” Despite his protestations of innocence, the trial has featured some gory details, including a film featuring Pistorius shooting a watermelon, and photos of Steenkamp’s fatal head wound.
Judge Thokozile Masipa will be delivering the verdict tomorrow at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, and the main questions would be whether he believes Pistorius knew Steenkamp was in the bathroom when the shooting happened, and whether Pistorius had actually planned to kill her prior to firing his gun.
If guilty of premeditated murder, Pistorius will serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the first 25 years. If he is convicted of murder, with no “malice aforethought,” he could serve 15 years for killing his girlfriend in a “crime of passion.” A third possibility would be culpable homicide, which means the shooting was purely accidental, with no intent to kill – this would result in a sentence of up to 15 years. And if found innocent of murder, Pistorius could still spend five years in jail for two counts of discharging firearms in public, or 15 years for being in the illegal possession of firearms.