After a seven-month trial, paralympian Oscar Pistorius will find out his fate on Tuesday in the High Court in Pretoria after his model and law-graduate girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was shot dead in his house. Judge Thokozile Masipa is expected to hand down her sentence at 9.30am, after finding him guilty of culpable homicide last month.

During sentencing closing arguments on Friday, prosecutor Gerrie Nel argued that only a jail sentence would suffice and that Pistorius should not use his disability to avoid jail. Nel argued that by giving the Steenkamps R6000 a month for 18 months and offering them another R375,000,

Pistorius had tried to influence his sentence. Barry Roux, SC, for Pistorius, said the principles of ubuntu and restorative justice should be applied to the case.

“Serious regard should be given to a community-based sentence, to restorative justice,” he told the court.

On Monday, the correctional services department denied reports that it had already prepared a cell for Pistorius at the Kgosi Mampuru II prison.
The trial started on March 3 after the State charged the athlete with premeditated murder.

On September 12, Pistorius was convicted of culpable homicide for the Valentine’s Day 2013 shooting of Steenkamp. The court found him not guilty of murdering her.

Pistorius was also found guilty of firing a shot from his friend Darren Fresco’s Glock 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. SAPA