Oscar Pistorius, the Paralympian who stood trial for the shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp and was convicted of culpable homicide, has now been found guilty of murder.
CNN noted that on Thursday in South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal, Judge Eric Leach overturned the earlier culpable homicide conviction to murder.
The ruling comes more than a year after the previous conviction which was the equivalent to that of manslaughter. Prosecutors at the time of that verdict vowed to seek a more severe charge.
On Valentine’s Day 2013, Pistorius said that he fired a gun through the bathroom door of his home believing it was an intruder, not Steenkamp. Judge Leach, however, ruled that the double-amputee runner should have known that firing his weapon would kill whoever was on the other side of the door, regardless of who he believed it was.
The initial judgment was "fundamentally flawed," Leach said.
Pistorius is currently under house arrest after spending one year of his five-year sentence in prison. He must return to court for his sentencing. The minimum sentence for murder in South Africa is 15 years.