Oscar Pistorius sentenced to five years in prison

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A South African judge sentenced former Olympic and Paralymic sprinter Oscar Pistorius to a maximum of five years in prison Tuesday for the culpable homicide of his girlfriend last February.

Judge Thokozile Masipa also gave the athlete once known as "The Blade Runner" a three-year suspended sentence on a firearms charge. She had found Pistorius guilty of culpable homicide, or negligent killing, but had acquitted him of the more serious crime of murder.

Masipa based the sentence on what she called the "gross negligence" of Pistorius, who shot Steenkamp multiple times through a toilet cubicle door in his home early on the morning of Feb. 14, 2013. Pistorius had testified that the shooting was an accident because he mistook his girlfriend for a nighttime intruder.

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