South African Judge Thokozile Masipa said “there is no indication at all” that former Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius and the girlfriend he murdered were in an abusive relationship.
African National Congress Women’s League spokesperson Jacqui Mofokeng, however, called the Valentine’s Day 2013 murder of Reeva Steenkamp a clear case of gender violence shortly after Masipa found “substantial and compelling circumstances” to levy Pistorius with a six-year prison term, a fraction of the mandatory 15-year prison sentence.
“The judgment is an insult to women,” Mofokeng said in a statement. “It’s an insult we saw coming a mile off (and an) increasingly mundane insult to which we have all become accustomed.