Following an intense 40-day trial, Oscar Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide in the shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp last year.

Pistorius, a famed Paralympic athlete nicknamed the "Blade Runner," fatally shot Steenkamp on Feb. 14, 2013. The pro-athlete pleaded not guilty to first degree murder, arguing that he shot her by mistake because he thought she was an intruder in his home. However, prosecutors in the high profile case claimed that he killed her out of rage after the couple had an argument in the wee hours of Valentine's Day.

On Friday, Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa ruled that Pistorius is guilty of culpable homicide, a lesser charge also known as manslaughter which is punishable with up to 15 years in prison, reports Fox News.

According to the judge, there was not enough evidence to support the prosecutor's argument that Pistorius knew Steenkamp was in a locked bathroom door in his home when he opened fire in the predawn hours of Valentine's Day last year. She added that the prosecution failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to kill the 29-year-old model.

"The accused is found not guilty and discharged," she said of the murder charges, reports the Los Angeles Times. "Instead he is found guilty of culpable homicide."

"The conduct of the accused shortly after the incident is inconsistent with the conduct of someone who intended to commit murder," she said of Pistorius, who shouted for help, called an ambulance and prayed that God would save her life after the shooting.

"From the above it cannot be said that the accused did not entertain a genuine belief that there was an intruder in the bathroom who posed a direct threat to his life," Masipa added.

On Thursday, Judge Masipa cleared the South African athlete of premeditated murder, which comes with a minimum mandatory sentence of 25 years in prison. He was also found innocent on a lesser charge of homicide known as "murder" right before the judge abruptly adjourned the case, without delivering a verdict on his other charges.

"We'll have to stop here and resume tomorrow morning," said the judge, without explaining the sudden adjournment, reports the New York Times.

After the trial, one witness who testified admitted that she felt "attacked" on the witness stand.

"We feel trampled by a bus," Annette Stipp said in a recent interview with the South African Times newspaper. Because she and her husband were neighbors of Pistorius in the Silver Woods country estate in Pretoria, they were called to testify for the prosecution, where they discussed what they saw and heard on the day that the South African track star fatally shot killed his girlfriend.

However, Stipp described her experience giving evidence and the aftermath as "emotional, daunting and exhausting." She added that she felt "personally attacked" and would not want to go through it again.

After she testified that she heard a woman screaming on the morning of the killing, she underwent a harsh cross-examination. Defence counsel Barry Roux also called the testimonies of Stipp and her husband as "exaggerated and contradictory ... creates doubt as to [their] reliability," reports The Guardian.

"You feel you are being attacked personally. Your integrity is questioned. We felt that [we] were being attacked as [liars]," Stipp told the newspaper.