The legal team of Oscar Pistorius says it has asked South Africa’s Constitutional Court to let it appeal the double-amputee Olympian’s murder conviction for the killing of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

Lawyer Andrew Fawcett on Monday said that papers have been filed with the court “asking them to grant us leave to appeal”.

• Pistorius granted bail, to stay under house arrest
• Oscar Pistorius convicted of murder on appeal
• Oscar Pistorius could be forced to return to jail

It is not immediately clear how long the Constitutional Court will take to decide whether it will hear Pistorius’s case.

In December, an appeals court threw out a lower court’s lesser manslaughter conviction and found Pistorius guilty of murder.

Pistorius shot Steenkamp through the door of a toilet cubicle in his home early on Valentines Day in 2013.