Oscar Pistorius should be jailed for at least 10 years for
killing his model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp,
the prosecution said Friday as the star sprinter’s sensational trial approached
its climax.
Slapping down defence claims that the “broke and broken”
Paralympic and Olympic athlete had already suffered enough, prosecutor Gerrie
Nel said “the minimum that society will be happy with is 10 years
imprisonment.”
After hearing final arguments from both the defence and
prosecution, Judge Thokozile Masipa scheduled sentencing for next Tuesday.
Defence lawyer Barry Roux said Pistorius was not a
“cold-blooded killer” and should serve a community-based sentence without any
prison time.
Nel described the suggestion as “shockingly
disproportionate”.
“Go home, stay in a luxurious house where he’s staying at the
moment… and he will not leave his house except if he wants to train, work, go
to a doctor — that’s what we do every day,” said Nel.
Nel said the “softly spoken words” of Steenkamp’s cousin Kim
Martin, who pleaded with the court to “make Mr Pistorius pay” for what he had
done, “trounces” any other testimony.
Pistorius, 27, was cleared of murdering Steenkamp by firing
four shots through a locked toilet door in his upmarket Pretoria home on
Valentine’s Day last year, but found guilty of culpable homicide, for which he
could be sentenced to anything from a fine to 15 years in jail.
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