Pistorius prosecutors appeal manslaughter conviction

PRETORIA, South Africa, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- State prosecutors in South Africa filed an appeal Tuesday to upgrade Oscar Pistorius' manslaughter conviction to murder.

The track star has begun serving a five-year sentence, after his conviction for culpable homicide in the 2013 shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, under which he could be freed from prison after 10 months. During the eight-month trial prosecutor Gerrie Nel argued Pistorius murdered Steenkamp, but Pistorius was cleared of murder charges, Judge Thokozile Masipa instead convicting him of the lesser charge.

"The appeal is based on the question of law," a spokesman for the National Prosecuting Authority said, offering no other details on the grounds for the appeal. Masipa will rule if the appeal will be upheld, after which a panel of three High Court judges, or South Africa's Supreme Court, could hear the appeal.

"She (Masipa) has to take a step back and decide whether there were any 50-50 decisions in her verdict where another judge could've come to a different conclusion," Johannesburg's University of the Witwaterstrand law professor Stephen Tuson told Bloomberg News.