If Oscar Pistorius had any reaction when he learned of the state's successful petition for an appeal of his culpable homicide conviction in the shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, only his lawyer saw it.
Pistorius' lawyer told AFP that the double-amputee sprinter did not "lose it" earlier in the week when prosecutors earned the right to convince an appeals court that Pistorius should be convicted of murder after shooting Steenkamp four times through a bathroom door on Valentine's Day, 2013, Yahoo! News reported.
Appeal theoretically could mean a lesser sentence for Oscar Pistorius?
Pistorius is serving a five-year sentence for the culpable homicide charge and was due to get out on house arrest after 10 months - or in August, 2015. Legal experts now agree that Pistorius' release seems remote with the appeal looming.
Prosecutors in Oscar Pistorius case granted right to appeal his acquittal on murder charges
He could serve at least 15 years in jail on the murder charge.
The South African newspaper, The Times, quoted an inmate saying that Pistorius "lost it" when he heard prosecutors won the right for an appeal while listening on the radio. The inmate added that Pistorius "started lifting weights like it was going out of fashion."
Brian Webber, a lawyer for Pistorius, denied the account to AFP, saying the story "is not only sensationalist but also devoid of any truth."
"I personally went to see Oscar straight after Judge (Thokozile) Masipa gave her ruling and discussed it at length with Oscar," Webber told AFP. "...This was the first time Oscar received any information on what had transpired in court."
The report did not include a statement from Webber as to what Pistorius' reaction was.
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Pistorius' new trial will hinge on whether Masipa applied the term "dolus eventualis" correctly, The Week UK reported. The term means a perpetrator's ability to foresee the possibility of his action causing death and persists regardless.
Masipa originally ruled that the prosecution did not prove that Pistorius foresaw that he might kill someone when he fired four shots into the bathroom.
In granting the appeal, she said, "I cannot say ... that the prospect of success at the supreme court of appeal is remote," during her ruling at the High Court in Pretoria on Thursday.
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