On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa found former Olympian, Oscar Pistorius, guilty of the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. The Court of Appeal effectively overturned the manslaughter conviction that Pistorius had received by a lower court for which he has already served a year’s time.

A conviction for murder in South Africa means a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison for Pistorius, according to The New York Times. The five Court of Appeal justice’s agreed with the prosecution’s arguments on several points. The court pointed out that the previous ruling against Pistorius, 29, dismissed circumstantial evidence that should have been considered as well as what they believed to be an incorrect interpretation of certain laws.

Pistorius was not in court when the verdict was read. Family of Steenkamp were in court and embraced and cried when the final verdict of murder was delivered against Pistorius. The justice’s stated that Pistorius had to have seen that the actions he took would result in the death of Steenkamp. Pistorius has always declared that he accidently shot his girlfriend having mistaken her for a burglar.

Pistorius currently remains under house arrest and will stay there until the court sentences him for the murder conviction. The Supreme Court of Appeal ordered that the sentence be handed down by the lower court that had convicted him of manslaughter. Pistorius is a double amputee who raced in the London Olympics in 2012, where he went by the nickname of The Blade Runner. Pistorius lost both of his legs at 11 months old and used artificial legs with curved blades.

Pistorius had taken a gun and shot through the bathroom door where Steenkamp was believing it to be an intruder in February 2013. The lower court did not convict him of murder because it believed that Pistorius’ intent was not to murder his girlfriend and that it had just been a tragic mistake.