The South African prison authorities granted this Friday the conditional release of the famous South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, in prison since 2014 for having killed his girlfriend, the model Reeva Steenkamp, a year earlier.
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“He Department of Correctional Services (DCS) confirms parole for Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius, effective January 5, 2024“said that institution in a statement, after a closed-door hearing was held in the prison of Atteridgevillein Pretoria.
“Pistorius will serve the remainder of his sentence in the community corrections system and will be subject to supervision in compliance with his parole conditions until his sentence expires,” the document added.
It was the second time that Pistorius requested parole, which was denied last March, despite the fact that the convicted argued that both his prison time and the minimum required were unfairly increased to opt for this measure, thus violating their “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 this Friday, the mother of the murdered model, June Steenkamp, She indicated that she is not “convinced” that “Oscar has been rehabilitated,” according to a letter read by her lawyers.
Even so, he stressed that, if authorities believe that Pistorius “is sufficiently rehabilitated,” it is his “desire that DCS parole policies and procedures be consistently applied upon his release.”
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Pistorius serving sentence for shooting Steenkamp to death (then 29 years old) 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.
“I don’t believe in Oscar’s version. (…) I don’t know anyone who does. My dear daughter screamed for her life, loud enough for the neighbors to hear her,” Steenkamp’s mother noted in her letter this Friday.
“Rehabilitation requires that a person honestly engage with the full truth of their crime and the consequences thereof. No one can claim to have remorse if they are not able to fully engage with the truth,” he added.
Oscar Pistorius to leave prison less than 8 years after killing Reeva Steenkamp
I followed every day of the trial. The whole thing’s been a disgrace in which the killer has been the focus not the victim
He should have served longer, faster #RIPreeva pic.twitter.com/yWSTC6koUs
— peter james needham (@pjneedham40) November 24, 2023
After a trial that garnered worldwide media attention, Pistorius was initially convicted in October 2014. to five years in prison for reckless homicide, but the Prosecutor’s Office appealed the ruling.
In 2015, the South African 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.
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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 his legs below the knees when he was eleven months old, Pistorius achieved world fame by running at the London Olympic Games (2012) on two carbon prostheses.
SPORTS*With information from EFE.
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