Oscar Pistorius to be sentenced for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp
South African paralympic gold medallist Oscar Pistorius will be sentenced to jail on Wednesday for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Pistorius, 29, was found guilty of murdering Steenkamp in 2013 by an appeals court last December. He had initially received a five-year sentence for a manslaughter conviction in 2014.
Pistorius killed Steenkamp when he fired a gun four times at a bathroom door in his house. He maintained during the trial that he shot as he was scared, believing that an intruder was behind the door and about to attack him.
The athlete had the lower part of his legs amputated when he was a baby, and his lawyers have argued that his physical disability and mental stress should be considered as mitigating circumstances to reduce his sentence.
During the hearings, his defence lawyer asked Pistorius to walk on his stumps to show the difficulty he faced dealing with the threat of an intruder.
In an interview with ITV aired earlier this month, his first since the shooting, an emotional Pistorius said that Steenkamp would want him to go free.
"I don't want to go back to jail. I don't want to have to waste my life sitting there," he said.
But Reeva's father, Barry Steenkamp, said during his sentencing that Pistorius has to "pay for what he did".
The original trial judge, Thokozile Masipa, will deliver the sentence at the Pretoria High Court.
Manelisi Wolela, a spokesman at the Department of Correctional Services, said Pistorius would be taken to jail immediately after the sentencing.
Pistorius will not be able to appeal the sentence.