Pretoria: Oscar Pistorius, the South African double-amputee sprinter who shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013, was sentenced on Wednesday to six years in prison .
In December, the country’s Supreme Court of Appeal threw out his earlier conviction of the lesser crime of culpable homicide, for which Pistorius had served one year of a five-year jail sentence.
Here is a timeline of events that began with the shooting on Valentine’s Day 2013.
- 2013 -
14 February: Police arrest the double-amputee Olympic sprinter for killing Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, who was shot four times at his Pretoria home.
15 February: Pistorius bursts into tears as he is charged, denying murder “in the strongest terms”.
19 February: Pistorius claims in an affidavit he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder. He fired through a locked bathroom door in what prosecutors term “premeditated” murder.
22 February: Pistorius is granted bail.
- 2014 -
3 March: The trial opens in Pretoria before an army of journalists from around the world, with the testimony of a neighbour who tells the court she heard “terrible screams” from a woman. Ten days later, Pistorius vomits when a picture of Steenkamp’s body is flashed on the court’s television screens.
7-15 April: Pistorius takes the stand and begins with a tearful apology to Steenkamp’s family. This is followed by five days of often intense cross-examination, marked by bouts of tears and breaks in the session. Pistorius steadfastly denies any intention to kill Steenkamp.
30 June: After a six-week break, a panel of three psychiatrists and a psychologist conclude that Pistorius does not suffer from mental illness.
12 September: Pistorius is found guilty of culpable homicide or manslaughter.
21 October: Judge Thokozile Masipa sentences Pistorius to a maximum of five years in jail. The athlete is immediately taken to Pretoria prison.
- 2015 -
20 October: Pistorius is allowed out of prison after just one year to spend the remainder of his sentence under house arrest.
3 December: The Supreme Court of Appeal convicts Pistorius of murder, saying his testimony was “vacillating and untruthful”.
8 December: Pistorius is released on bail pending sentencing, and remains under house arrest.
- 2016 -
11 January: Pistorius makes last-ditch attempt with South Africa’s top court to overturn his murder conviction.
2 March: Pistorius loses his final bid to appeal his murder conviction.
6 July: He is sentenced to six years in jail for the murder.