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← BizNews Radio11 sep · 31 min

Was Oscar Pistorius convicted of the wrong crime? A 36 year advocate says groupthink sentenced him

Was Oscar Pistorius convicted of the wrong crime? A 36 year advocate says groupthink sentenced him11 sep31 min

For six years, retired senior advocate Chris Marnewick worked through the 3,000 page record of the Oscar Pistorius trial, line by line, against the judgments that decided his fate. His conclusion, set out in a new book, is that the Supreme Court of Appeal got it wrong: Pistorius should have been convicted of culpable homicide, not murder. Marnewick argued that the cross-examination crossed lines an American or Canadian court would not have allowed, and that the picture the public built from social media, of an hour-long argument ending in a killing, was never supported by what was actually heard in court. He spoke to Alec Hogg about the witness who pointed in the wrong direction, the three words that changed Pistorius's sentence on a second appeal, and why he says the public became a victim of what he calls the big lie.