The disgraced Olympic and Paralympic gold medallist Oscar Pistorius will be re-sentenced and will go back to jail on Thursday for at least 15 years for killing his girlfriend.
In South Africa, a murder conviction usually carries a minimum sentence of 15 years, although Pistorius` lawyers are likely to argue that his physical disability and mental stress should be considered as mitigating circumstances.
Pistorius was released under house arrest on Oct. 19 after serving less than a year of his original sentence, in line with South African guidelines that say non-dangerous prisoners should spend only one-sixth of a custodial sentence behind bars.
The Paralympic gold medallist was freed on parole in October after serving a fifth of the prison term given to him for the "culpable homicide" of Reeva Steenkamp, who he killed on Valentine`s Day 2013.
Prosecutors were arguing that a high court judge had made legal errors when she decided not to convict Pistorius of the more serious charge of murder last year.
The defence argues that Oscar Pistorius has already served the period of imprisonment imposed by the trial court, so the conviction should stand.
State lawyers showed that the high court not only approached the circumstantial evidence incorrectly, but also incorrectly excluded relevant evidence.
Prosecutors said Pistorius shot Steenkamp during an argument, while the defence said Pistorius killed Steenkamp by mistake, thinking she was an intruder.
Chief state prosecutor Gerrie Nel said: "We have to convince the court that we are dealing with errors of law.
"The court ignored the most important circumstantial evidence that would make the respondent`s version ... impossible."
Today, the judge, said: "A person should be committed of the crime he has convicted."
Judge Leach said the issue was whether Pistorius could foresee that there was a person behind the door who could die if he fired into it.
At the original trial in September last year, high court Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled that the state had failed to prove intent or "dolus eventualis", a legal concept that centres on a person being held responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their actions.
High court judge Masipa convicted Pistorius of culpable homicide in September 2014 after a sensational seven-month trial. He also convicted him of firing a pistol under the table of a packed restaurant but cleared of the illegal possession of ammunition and firing a pistol out of the sun-roof of a car.
Born without fibulas, Pistorius has both legs amputated below the knees before turning one-year-old.
The `Blade runner`, who runs on carbon fibre prosthetics blades, becam a Paralympic gold medallist over 200m in Athens in 2004 and he won three gold medals at the Paralympics in Beijing in 2008.
In what was hailed as a significant turning point for disabled athletes, Pistorius successfully won the right to race against able-bodied athletes at the London 2012 Olympics.
