Steenkamps support NPA’s Oscar appeal
Reeva Steenkamp’s parents have voiced support for the State’s decision to appeal Oscar Pistorius’s six-year jail sentence for her murder.
|||Pretoria - As the National Prosecuting Authority announced it would appeal Oscar Pistorius’s six-year jail sentence for murdering Reeva Steenkamp, her parents said they would devote their energy to a new foundation in their daughter’s name to help fight domestic abuse.
On Thursday, Steenkamp’s parents released a statement through their lawyers, which stressed that they had always supported State prosecutor Gerrie Nel’s “fight for justice” for their daughter, but pointed out that they had no say in State’s decision to appeal the sentence.
Judge Thokozile Masipa sentenced the former paralympian on July 6 for killing Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day in 2013. The NPA had two weeks to file an appeal against the sentence, which they did on Thursday.
Masipa originally sentenced Pistorius to five years behind bars for culpable homicide, of which he served one year.
But, that conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein last year, and converted to murder.
The statement released by the Steenkamp family’s lawyers read: “June and Barry have always fully supported Gerrie Nel and his team’s fight for justice for Reeva.
“As they have no input in the decision of the state to appeal, they are focusing their energy on the upcoming official media launch of The Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp Foundation on the 19 August 2016, on what would have been Reeva’s 33rd birthday, at Sun International’s ‘The Boardwalk’, in her hometown of Port Elizabeth.”
The statement adds that Reeva was due to give a speech against abuse at a school in Johannesburg on the day she was murdered. Now, her mother “strives to be Reeva’s voice and continue Reeva’s passion in educating and empowering victims of domestic violence and abuse”.
The family also plans to launch a one-stop “education pack” on domestic violence which they have dubbed the “Reeva pack”.
During sentencing proceedings Barry Steenkamp testified in aggravation of sentence about the devastation his daughter’s death had caused.
He told the court: “I want the world to see the photos of the wounds inflicted on her. To know my daughter’s pain. To know what her last few seconds were like, so that this is stopped ... so that others do not have to go through this ever.”
African News Agency