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Oscar Pistorius Is NOT A Victim: Prosecutor Gerrie Nel Balks At Sympathetic Image

The tear-streaked face of Oscar Pistorius has been a staple in the media since he first fatally shot his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day 2013. The man has weeped, wailed, and even vomited in court. Ho...
Oscar Pistorius Is NOT A Victim: Prosecutor Gerrie Nel Balks At Sympathetic Image
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  • The tear-streaked face of Oscar Pistorius has been a staple in the media since he first fatally shot his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day 2013.

    The man has weeped, wailed, and even vomited in court.

    However prosecutor Gerrie Nel has largely remained unmoved by Pistorius’s “antics” throughout the murder trial.

    When Oscar Pistorius was placed on the stand, he grilled the 27-year-old mercilessly about his behavior and the truth behind Steenkamp’s death.

    Though Oscar has been relentless in his insistence that shooting his then girlfriend was an accident, the prosecution believes that the 29-year-old was killed following an argument.

    Witnesses testified to hearing gunshots and a woman’s screams. Pistorius claimed that it was his own desperate screams that his neighbors heard in the early morning hours.

    Judge Thokozile Masipa listened carefully to both sides and in September decided that Oscar Pistorius was not guilty of murder. Instead, she ruled he was guilty of culpable homicide or manslaughter.

    Some felt that the man known as “Blade Runner” had successfully passed off a remorseful image that made himself out to be the victim of the events that left his girlfriend dead.

    And it is this sympathetic image of the athlete that has apparently greatly angered prosecutor Gerrie Nel.

    In response to claims that convicted athlete has suffered enough and shouldn’t go to prison, Nel said that Pistorius was “still alive” while Steenkamp wasn’t. This is a fact that the prosecutor felt should not be forgotten.

    On the second day of the sentencing trial phase, Nel attacked the defense’s choice to use of Pistorius’s charity work to show him as a caring and compassionate human being.

    According to the prosecution, these efforts were about his career and nothing more.

    There has also been a great deal of criticism of the suggestion that Pistorius be sentenced to house arrest and community service.

    To shoot a woman four times, even if unintentionally, and only receive a slap on the wrist is a concept that is beyond baffling to Nel.

    Instead, the prosecution is aiming to get Oscar Pistorius sentenced to the maximum under a culpable homicide conviction—15 years in prison.

    The defense has argued that jail would be a terrible choice for Oscar, and that his psychological state would greatly deteriorate. They also described him as a “broken man”.

    Do you think Oscar Pistorius should be sent to jail or given probation while undergoing psychological treatment?

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