Oscar Pistorius Guilty in Murder of Reeva Steenkamp, Appeals Court Rules
By NORIMITSU ONISHI

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s top appeals court ruled on Thursday that Oscar Pistorius, the Olympic star known as the Blade Runner, was guilty of murder in the 2013 killing of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, overturning a lower court’s conviction on the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Mr. Pistorius has already served about a year in prison and is now under house arrest for the previous conviction; a murder conviction carries a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.

The appeals court sided with state prosecutors on central points, saying that the manslaughter conviction, technically called culpable homicide, had been based on a misinterpretation of laws and an erroneous dismissal of circumstantial evidence.

The court said that Mr. Pistorius, who has said repeatedly that he accidentally killed his girlfriend when he believed his home had been broken into, should have foreseen that his actions would cause the death of a person.

Mr. Pistorius, 29, who has been under house arrest since October, is expected to remain at home pending a new sentence.

He was not present when five judges of the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein delivered their verdict. Ms. Steenkamp’s relatives, who were in the courtroom, embraced upon hearing the ruling.

“As a result of the error of laws referred to and on a proper appraisal of the facts, he ought to have been convicted not of culpable homicide on that count but of murder,” Judge Eric Leach said.

Under South African law — as in some European countries and Canada — state prosecutors can appeal a verdict to a higher court, as they did in this case. Experts say appeals court judges in South Africa, which does not have a jury system, routinely overturn verdicts or sentences handed down in a lower court.

“There’s nothing untoward in that,” said Marius du Toit, a criminal defense lawyer and a former prosecutor. “What you often find is that they would disagree with a ruling and say, ‘This decision is clearly wrong.’ They’re not pronouncing on the bona fides of the judge. It’s just part of the checks and balances you would want in a legal system.”

The appeals court ordered the lower court to hand a new sentence to Mr. Pistorius, who became the first double amputee to compete in the Olympic Games, in London in 2012.

The court’s ruling revives a long-running legal battle that transfixed South Africa last year with its touchstone themes of celebrity, violence against women, crime and home intrusions. In a unanimous ruling, the appeals court described the case as “a human tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.”

Mr. Pistorius’s family said that it had “taken note” of the ruling by the appeals court, the second-highest court in the country, but that it had not decided on its next steps.

“The legal team will study the finding, and we will be guided by them in terms of options going forward,” the family said in a statement.

Legal experts said Mr. Pistorius could try to take his case to the Constitutional Court, but it was unclear whether that court would regard it as a matter under its jurisdiction.

Mr. Pistorius, whose lower legs were amputated when he was 11 months old and whose use of curved prosthetics earned him the nickname Blade Runner, said he shot Ms. Steenkamp through the locked door of his bathroom at home in February 2013 in the belief that she was an intruder.

In her verdict last year, Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa of the High Court sided with the defendant, saying his account “could reasonably be true.” She acquitted him of the more serious charge of murder, saying that prosecutors had failed to bring “strong circumstantial evidence” and to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Pistorius had shown intent to kill.

But prosecutors, and Ms. Steenkamp’s family, argued that Mr. Pistorius had deliberately killed his girlfriend after an argument.

In presenting their case before the five-judge appeals court last month, prosecutors argued that Judge Masipa had misinterpreted the legal concept of dolus eventualis in finding Mr. Pistorius not guilty of murder. They argued that Mr. Pistorius should be found guilty because, under the legal principle, he should have known that firing through the locked door would kill whoever was inside.

The appeals court agreed, saying that Judge Masipa had misread the legal principle by narrowly applying it to whether Mr. Pistorius believed Ms. Steenkamp was inside the bathroom.

“I have no doubt that in firing the fatal shots, the accused must have foreseen, and therefore did foresee, that whoever was behind the toilet door might die, but reconciled himself to that event occurring and gambled with that person’s life,” Judge Leach said. “This constituted dolus eventualis on his part, and the identity of his victim is irrelevant to his guilt.”

In a withering criticism of Judge Masipa’s ruling, Judge Leach said she had also erred by dismissing relevant circumstantial evidence, including the type of ammunition used by Mr. Pistorius.

Judge Masipa, whose handling of the high-profile trial was widely praised but whose verdict drew criticism as too lenient, is expected to deliver the new sentence on the murder conviction.

The legal proceedings in recent months drew little of the intense attention that the trial attracted in South Africa last year. But after Thursday’s ruling was announced, the reaction, on social media at least, appeared to reflect the general sentiment that the punishment handed down last year was not commensurate to the crime.

“Finally some justice,” read many messages on Twitter. One person posted: “99% of us don’t have the law degree Masipa had but we’ve been saying what Leach has summed up.”

The victim’s father, Barry Steenkamp, told journalists: “I’m satisfied with everything now. I would hope to God that all of this could have been prevented, but seeing that it has been done, let us now all get on with our lives.”

At the hearing last month, lawyers for Mr. Pistorius argued again that he had feared for his life when he fired four shots into his bathroom. In a country with high crime rates, the fear of home intrusion cuts across social and racial classes and, in the kind of gated community in Pretoria where Mr. Pistorius lived, manifests itself in high walls and security guards.

Mr. Pistorius was released from prison in October after serving about one year of his five-year sentence. He had been serving the remainder of his sentence under house arrest at his uncle’s home in Pretoria, the capital.

Mr. Pistorius, who was eligible for early release after serving a minimum of one-sixth of his sentence, was initially scheduled to be released from prison in August. But his release was delayed several times because of pressure from Ms. Steenkamp’s parents, who argued in the news media that Mr. Pistorius had served too little time in prison for the killing of their daughter, a model and law school graduate.

The killing occurred several months after the 2012 Olympic Games. Mr. Pistorius, a global model for the disabled and a hero for post-apartheid South Africa, was selected to carry the nation’s flag at the event’s closing ceremony.

The South African news media recently showed him reporting to a police station to perform community service, as required by his sentence. Mr. Pistorius, who was wearing dark sunglasses and a baseball cap, did not respond to questions from journalists.

南非法院改判 「刀鋒戰士」謀殺罪成立

南非最高上訴法院3日推翻高等法院的過失殺人罪原判，改判「刀鋒戰士」皮斯托瑞斯以謀殺罪，刑期最低15年，但刑期宣布前他會繼續在普勒托利亞郊外的叔叔家接受居家監禁。

皮斯托瑞斯2013年情人節朝浴室開了4槍，殺害在上鎖浴室門後的名模女友史婷坎普；皮斯托瑞斯辯稱以為宵小闖入，才出於自衛開槍。

設於布隆泉市的南非最高法院法官李契認為，「皮斯托瑞斯使用強力武器，必已預見門後的人會死，此乃常識」，且皮斯托瑞斯「不知那人是否構成任何威脅」，不符合自衛之說。

高等法院去年10月以過失殺人罪判處皮斯托瑞斯五年徒刑，服刑10月後即可申請居家監禁，但法院一直拖到今年10月才讓他出獄，返回普勒托利亞郊外高級住宅區的叔叔家居家監禁。

謀殺罪名最低刑期是15年，但在極特別情況下可酌減其刑。英國廣播公司指出，宣判日期可能在明年。

南非法律規定，刑期超過5年者不得申請居家監禁，皮斯托瑞斯日必須返監服刑。皮斯托瑞斯仍可上訴，但只有在他的律師認定上訴法官侵害他的憲法權利的情況下始得為之，這是很難達到的高門檻。皮斯托瑞斯的家屬說，將靜待辯護律師團的指示。

皮斯托瑞斯未至布隆泉市聆聽判決，但受害者雙親在場。新判決出爐後，受害人父親巴瑞表示「深感欣慰」，忍不住落淚；受害人母親珍則在法庭外接受婦女聯盟成員擁抱。

南非婦女聯盟認為，皮斯托瑞斯謀殺罪成立將有遏止作用；南非有很多女性死於伴侶之手。

皮斯托瑞斯幼時雙腿膝蓋以下截肢，他2012年獲准參加倫敦奧運，是奧運田徑史上首位和一般選手同場比賽的殘障選手，用碳纖維打造的義肢使他被封為刀鋒戰士。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/world/africa/oscar-pistorius.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/world/20151204/c04pistorius/zh-hant/

Video：Eric Leach, a judge in South Africa, on Thursday read the appeals verdict for Oscar Pistorius over the killing of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in 2013. Her mother was seen at the trial.
http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/africa/100000004071834/judge-reads-pistorius-appeal-sentence.html

2015-12-04．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯陳韻涵