Pistorius was imprisoned in July last year after being found guilty on appeal of murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013.
Oscar Pistorius has had his “shockingly lenient” six-year jail sentence for murdering his model girlfriend increased to 13 years.
Pistorius was imprisoned in July last year after being found guilty on appeal of murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013 in a case that attracted worldwide interest.
The athlete was not in court for Friday’s ruling, when he was handed the minimum 15-year sentence prescribed for murder in South Africa, minus the years he has already served in jail.
South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal increased the sentence to 13 years and five months after the state argued that his original sentence of six years was “shockingly lenient”.
A spokeswoman for Ms Steenkamp’s family said the ruling ‘has verified there is justice’.
Pistorius, who had both his legs amputated below the knee when he was a baby, claims he killed his girlfriend, who was 29, because he thought she was an intruder.
He fired four times through a locked toilet door at his Pretoria home.
His trial heard that he was a suicide risk but that was lessened by his close family ties and devout Christianity.
The athlete, now 31, became the first double leg amputee to take part in the Olympics with other able-bodied runners when he competed in the 2012 Games in London.
He became close to Ms Steenkamp that year, and the couple were first spotted together at a sports awards event in November 2012.
Ms Steenkamp was a celebrity in South Africa and had been named as one of the 100 sexiest women in the world by men’s magazine FHM.
She had graduated in law from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth.
The model was in the bathroom of the athlete’s £265,000 house on the outskirts of Pretoria when he fired four shots through the door.
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