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Paralympian Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to six years in jail Wednesday for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp three years ago.
Judge Thokozile Masipa cited mitigating circumstances such as his remorse, the time he spent in jail for his original sentence, and the fact that he was not wearing his prosthetic legs at the time of the crime in reducing the prescribed minimum sentence of 15 years.
During the trial, Pistorius claimed that he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder when he shot four times through a locked bathroom door, killing her, on the night of Valentine’s Day, 2013. Prosecutors argued that he meant to kill Steenkamp.
The law graduate and aspiring model was 29-years-old when she killed by her boyfriend.
In 2014, Judge Masipa convicted Pistorius of culpable homicide — equivalent to the U.S. charge of manslaughter — and gave him a five-year sentence. He was released on parole in October after a year of time served, only to see his conviction overturned by an appeals court and replaced with a murder conviction in December.
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