A suspended sentence imposed on Oscar Pistorius for shooting dead girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp would not be appropriate, Judge Thokozile Masipa said on Tuesday in the High Court in Pretoria.
“The present case is so serious that a suspended sentence would not be appropriate in my view,” she said.
“I am of the view that a non custodial sentence would send the wrong message to the community on the other hand a long sentence would not be appropriate as it would lack mercy.”
She said a long prison sentence would “break” Pistorius but a suspended sentence could mean that society lose faith in society.
Masipa sentenced Pistorius to five years for Steenkamp’s death.
He was also sentenced to three years, suspended for five years, for firing a pistol under a table at Tasha’s restaurant in Johannesburg in January 2013.
The sentences would run concurrently.
On September 12, Pistorius was convicted of culpable homicide on for the Valentine’s Day 2013, shooting Steenkamp in his Pretoria townhouse. The court found him not guilty of murdering Steenkamp.
Pistorius shot Steenkamp through the locked door of the toilet, apparently thinking she was an intruder about to emerge and attack him. She was hit in the hip, arm, and head.
Pistorius was found guilty of firing a pistol under a table at Tasha’s restaurant in Johannesburg in January 2013. He was found not guilty of shooting through the open sunroof of a car in Modderfontein on September 30, 2012, and of illegal possession of ammunition.
Source : Sapa /dm/tk/aa
