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Johannesburg – Oscar Pistorius’s legal team intends to oppose the State’s application to appeal the athlete’s conviction and five-year sentence. Eyewitness News reported yesterday that Pistorius’s lawyers had served official notice to oppose the appeal.
According to EWN, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has received the notice, but said the papers do not reveal the defence’s grounds for its opposition to the appeal.
IOL reported yesterday that Judge Thokozile Masipa will hear the State’s application for leave to appeal on November 18.
According to IOL, Pistorius’s lawyer Brian Webber said the defence will oppose the application and set out its grounds in due course.
The NPA on Tuesday said it had applied for leave to appeal against Pistorius’s culpable homicide conviction and five-year sentence for the death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home in February last year.
The NPA added that it found Judge Masipa’s sentence “shockingly light and inappropriate”, and said the jail term would not have been imposed by any reasonable court.
The appeal would be based on questions of law, and the judge’s interpretation of the circumstantial evidence and the principle of dolus eventualis. — Sapa
derick.khumalo