OSCAR Pistorius could yet be convicted of murder and face 15 years in prison.
This after Judge Thokozile Masipa granted the prosecution leave to appeal her decision to acquit the disabled athlete of murder.
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) will now consider whether Pistorius is guilty of murder or culpable homicide for killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, 29, in his Pretoria home on February 14 last year.
In September, Masipa convicted Pistorius, 28, of culpable homicide after he said he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder when he fired four shots into a locked bathroom door.
In the Pretoria High Court yesterday, Masipa said she was "persuaded" that the points the prosecution raised regarding the murder charge were questions of law and not of fact.
She referred three questions to the SCA for consideration, namely:
l whether she applied the principles of dolus eventualis correctly on the accepted facts;
l whether she dealt with circumstantial evidence correctly; and
l whether she was correct to "construct" a defence from the various defences Pistorius offered, accepting parts of what he said and rejecting others.
"I am of the view that if it [the appeal on the questions of law] succeeds, it can have a material influence on the conviction," Masipa said.
However, she refused the state permission to appeal against the sentence she imposed.
Masipa sentenced Pistorius to five years in prison in October, but he will qualify to be considered for correctional supervision after serving 10 months.
"I am not persuaded there was any material misdirection or irregularity or that the sentence is so shockingly inappropriate as to create a sense of shock," she said.
Pistorius could be out of jail by the time the appeal court considers his case, National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesman Nathi Mncube said.
Mncube said the registrar of the SCA must now give the NPA a date for the appeal to be heard which will most likely be in at least a year.
If the SCA convicts Pistorius of murder, it will have to consider an appropriate sentence anew. The prescribed minimum sentence for murder is 15 years in jail.
Masipa ordered the state to pay the defence's legal costs relating to the dismissed application for leave to appeal the sentence.
In a short statement, Pistorius's uncle, Arnold, said: "We note the finding of the court and abide by the ruling."
Pistorius's father, Henke, declined to comment, but added that "it should never have gone this far".
Steenkamp family, lawyer Dup de Bruyn, said Reeva's parents wanted justice to take its course.
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