Pistorius appeals murder conviction

PRETORIA, South Africa, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- South African Olympian Oscar Pistorius has filed an application to appeal his murder conviction, his lawyer Brian Webber said.

Pistorius, 29, was tried and convicted for manslaughter in the shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, 29, at his home in 2013.

He pleaded not guilty, saying he mistook her for an intruder and fired four bullets at her through a closed bathroom door.

After serving one-year of a five-year sentence, the manslaughter verdict was overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeals in December and replaced with a murder verdict, which Pistorius is appealing to South Africa's Constitutional Court, the country's highest court.

He is currently under house arrest. His lawyers have maintained the Supreme Court made factual errors in upgrading the charge to murder.

Pistorius, a world-class runner on prosthetic blades despite legs amputated at the knee when he was 11 months old, competed in the Paralympics and the Olympic Games for South Africa and prior to the shooting was regarded as his country's most prominent athlete.