PRETORIA: South African former Paralympic star Oscar Pistorius was granted early release from prison on Friday (Nov 24), a decade after he fatally shot his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in a crime that gripped the world, prison authorities said.
A parole board reviewing whether Pistorius, 37, was fit for social reintegration decided to place him on parole from Jan 5, 2024, the Department of Correctional Services said.
“Mr Pistorius will complete the remainder of the sentence in the system of community corrections and will be subjected to supervision in compliance with parole conditions until his sentence expires”.
Earlier, Steenkamp’s mother told the parole hearing that she did not believe the ex-athlete was rehabilitated for he had not shown true remorse.
“Rehabilitation requires someone to engage honestly with the full truth of his crime and the consequences thereof. Nobody can claim to have remorse if they’re not able to engage fully with the truth,” June Steenkamp said in a statement to the board.
But her spokesman told the board that she was not opposing parole for Pistorius.
The hearing, held at a correctional centre outside Pretoria where he is currently detained, was Pistorius’s second shot at parole in less than eight months.
He lost a first bid in March when the board found Pistorius had not completed the minimum detention period required to be let out.
The Constitutional Court last month ruled that was a mistake, paving the way for a new hearing.
Pistorius killed Steenkamp, a model, in the early hours of Valentine’s Day 2013, firing four times through the bathroom door of his ultra-secure Pretoria house.
Known worldwide as the “Blade Runner” for his carbon-fibre prosthetics, he was found guilty of murder and given a 13-year jail sentence in 2017 after a lengthy trial and several appeals.
He had pleaded not guilty and denied killing Steenkamp in a rage, saying he mistook her for a burglar.
Source: CNA
