Prosecutor calls Pistorius' shooting of Steenkamp 'horrific'

The state prosecutor in Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius' murder trial has said that the hollow-point bullets fired by the South African athlete from his powerful handgun that 'ripped' through Reeva Steenkamp's body, must have been horrific.

Prosecutor Gerrie Nel urged Judge Thokozile Masipa on Friday at the athlete's sentencing hearing that Pistorius should be sent to prison for causing a terrible death. He said that when he thinks about that, it must have been horrific.

Nel was presenting his final argument ahead of the sentencing of the double-amputee Olympic runner, who has been acquitted of murder but found guilty of culpable homicide in his girlfriend's shooting death. Culpable homicide is comparable to manslaughter, Sport24 reported.

The Judge could issue a suspended jail sentence and a fine, order Pistorius to go under house arrest, or send him to prison for up to 15 years.

Pistorius's lawyers have argued for a three-year sentence of occasional house arrest and community service and no jail time, saying that the double amputee athlete has suffered emotionally and financially already, and would be under duress in prison because of his disability.

Prosecutors want Pistorius sent to prison. Nel called a house arrest sentence shockingly disproportionate to what the athlete did in the pre-dawn hours of Valentines Day last year when he shot four times through a toilet cubicle door in his home, hitting Steenkamp in the head, arm and hip.

Nel said that Steenkamp died in a small cubicle behind a closed door, adding that three bullets ripped through her body.

The sentencing has been postponed until Tuesday 21 October 2014, the report added.