Former England
batsman Kevin Pietersen has labelled the South African court's
decision of handing Oscar Pistorius asix-year jail term for killing his girlfriend as
'pathetic' and 'shambles'.
While delivering her
decision in a story that has attracted intense worldwide attention, Judge
Thokozile Masipa said she had considered both aggravating and mitigating
factors, such as rehabilitation and murder, and concluded that the latter
outweighed the former.
Judge Masipa cited
this factor as main reason for deviating from the prescribed 15-year sentence
for murder. She also observed that a court should not be swayed by public
opinion but added that punishment must also reflect the seriousness of the
offence.
However, the latest
ruling didn't go down too well with the South African-born batsman, who has
been vocal on his desire to see the convicted Paralympics runner punished with
a harsh sentence, Sport24 reported.
"Judge Masipa
should have left her chair, walked down to #OscarPistorius, shook his hand
& given him a hug too! #Pathetic #Shambles," a visibly miffed
Pietersen wrote on Twitter.
Pistorius, famously
known as the Blade Runner, was released on parole in October 2015 and has been
placed under house arrest since then at his uncle's house after serving almost
a year in prison of his five-year sentence.
But the
double-amputee athlete was found guilty of murder after the Supreme Court
overturned his previous culpable homicide conviction in December following the
state's successful attempt in challenging the verdict.
Pistorius has always
denied deliberately killing his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013 and
claimed that he mistook her for an intruder before shooting her dead with four
bullets fired through a closed toilet door.
Following the ruling,
the 29-year-old was taken immediately to jail. Both the prosecution and defence
can appeal.
Representative
Image
Source:
ANI
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