PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) – South Africa’s former Olympic track star Oscar Pistorius appeared briefly in a Pretoria court where a judge scheduled five days in June to determine his sentence for murdering his girlfriend.
The sentencing hearing for Pistorius will be held from June 13 to 17 at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.
The 29-year-old double amputee sprinter, who was found guilty of murdering Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013, was greeted by a small group of vocal supporters outside the court.
The sentencing hearing will be heard by Judge Thokozile Masipa, who presided over Pistorius’s trial and found him guilty of manslaughter, a verdict that was overturned by a higher court that found him guilty of the more serious charge of murder.
Pistorius appealed his murder conviction, arguing that a lower court erred when it overturned his manslaughter conviction. But at South Africa’s Constitutional Court dismissed his appeal.