Oscar Pistorius is likely to receive less than the minimum 15-year prison sentence for murdering Reeva Steenkamp, legal sources have claimed.
The disgraced Paralympian is due to be sentenced on Wednesday for murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at his home in Pretoria, South Africa, three years ago.
He was was freed from prison in the South African capital last October after serving one year of a five-year term for culpable homicide – the equivalent of manslaughter.
An appeals court later upgraded the conviction to murder, which has a minimum standard sentence of 15 years.
But due to his time already spent in jail and mitigating factors such as his disability, he may be given a lesser term.
Pistorius, 29, shot Steenkamp to death in the early hours of Valentine’s Day in 2013, claiming he mistook her for a burglar when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.
Judge Thokozile Masipa, who heard the original trial, will deliver the sentence three weeks after a court hearing that marked another episode of high drama in the long-running case.
Pistorius, sobbing heavily, hobbled on his stumps across the courtroom to demonstrate his physical vulnerability as his lawyers argued he should not return to jail on account of his anxiety disorder and depression.
At the sentencing hearing, prosecutor Gerrie Nel argued that the double-amputee sprinter should be given a lengthy jail term as he failed to show any remorse for the murder.
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