Grahamstown based attorney Brin Brody believes South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius got off lightly with a five-year prison sentence.
Grahamstown based attorney Brin Brody believes South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius got off lightly with a five-year prison sentence.
Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide Tuesday 21 October after he shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013.
Brody, of Wheeldon Rushmere & Cole, told Grocott’s Mail Thursday that Pistorius should have been convicted of murder on the basis of dolus eventualis (awareness of the likely outcome of an action) and given a stiffer sentence of at least 10 to 15 years.
“It is a reality of life that if an accused utilising an expensive legal team, with experts, probably do get a better defence than someone that cannot afford such representation,” he said.
However, Brody believes South Africa’s justice system is operating well and there are isolated cases where justice is not done.
“The present sentence, in terms of that section of the Criminal Procedure Act, means that Oscar will only serve 10 months and be illegible for parole thereafter,” Brody said, adding that the sentence sends out a very bad message to South Africans.
Judge Thokozile Masipa found that the state failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Pistorius had the intention to murder Steenkamp.
She did, however, find the double amputee guilty of one charge of negligence when he discharged his friend's gun under the table of a Johannesburg restaurant in January last year, giving him a suspended three-year sentence to run concurrently.
Pistorius was found not guilty on the two other firearms related charges.
Brody added that the trial was handled well by the Judge and indicated to the world that we have a good, first-world, justice system.
“I do not know if it was such a good idea to have the entire proceedings televised as this created enormous problems from time to time,” he said.
The International Paralympic Committee said Pistorius will be banned from athletics competitions until 2019.
