The famous South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, in prison since 2014 for having killed his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, a year earlier, was released from prison this Friday after being granted conditional release.
"The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) confirms that Oscar Pistorius is on parole, effective January 5, 2024. He was admitted to the community prison system and is now home," said this institution through a statement collected by EFE. "He will not be able to consume alcohol and other substances. (...) Like other people on parole, Pistorius is prohibited from conducting interviews with the media," the DCS added in another statement the previous day.
These restrictions will be valid until the athlete's sentence expires in 2029, the DCS said, also highlighting that his "high public profile" does not "differentiate him from other inmates or justify inconsistent treatment."
Pistorius is serving time for shooting dead Steenkamp, then 29, at his home in Pretoria on Valentine's Day 2013, when he was at the peak of his fame and had amassed a fortune from his sporting career.
He shot her four times through the closed bathroom door and has tried unsuccessfully to defend that he panicked when he mistook the model for a thief who had entered the home through the bathroom window.
Pistorius was granted parole on November 14, during a closed-door hearing at Atteridgeville prison in Pretoria. It was the second time that Pistorius requested parole, which was denied last March despite the fact that the convicted man argued that both his time in prison and the minimum required to qualify for that measure were unfairly increased, thus violating his "fundamental rights." .
Pistorius, 37, then took his case to the Constitutional Court of South Africa, which last October ruled that the athlete was eligible for parole.
Before the hearing began last November, the murdered model's mother, June Steenkamp, said she is "not convinced" that "Oscar has been rehabilitated," according to a letter read by her lawyers. Still, she noted that if authorities believe Pistorius "is sufficiently rehabilitated," it is his "desire that DCS parole policies and procedures be consistently applied in his release."
After Pistorius' parole became effective, Steenkamp said in a written statement collected by AFP: "We, who are still here, are sentenced to life imprisonment."
Following a trial that garnered worldwide media attention, Pistorius was initially sentenced in October 2014 to five years in prison for manslaughter, but the Prosecutor's Office appealed the ruling.
In 2015, South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal overturned that conviction and found him guilty of murder, referring the case back to a lower court which, in July 2016, sentenced Pistorius to six years in prison for murder.
However, after another appeal by the Prosecutor's Office, the Supreme Court of Appeal increased the sentence in November 2017 to fifteen years, the minimum contemplated by law in cases of murder except in exceptional situations.
In practice, that sentence meant thirteen years and five months in prison, after deducting the time that Pistorius - who spent a period on bail and under house arrest - had already spent in prison.
Born with a genetic problem that led his parents to decide to amputate both of his legs below the knees when he was eleven months old, Pistorius achieved global fame by running at the London Olympic Games (2012) on two carbon prostheses.
