Oscar Pistorius is released from prison almost eleven years after killing his girlfriend

The famous South African athlete Oscar Pistoriusin prison since 2014 for having killed his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, ​​a year earlier, was released from prison this Friday after being granted parole, confirmed the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) of South Africa.

“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.

(Read: Oscar Pistorius: this is the cruel story of the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp)

Prison authorities granted Pistorius parole on November 24, during a closed-door hearing at Atteridgeville Prison in Pretoria.

This Wednesday, the DCS indicated that, despite the athlete's “high public profile”, the “general conditions” of that regime will apply to him, such as, for example, being “at home at certain times of the day.”

“He will not be able to consume alcohol or other substances. (…) Like other people on parole, Pistorius is prohibited from conducting interviews with the media,” the agency added, specifying that these restrictions will be valid until the sentence expires in 2029.

In a statement reported by local media, the mother of the murdered model, June Steenkamp, ​​said this Friday that the pain over her daughter's death is still “raw and real” and regretted that “the intensity of the (media) coverage of the trial” and the subsequent requests for parole meant the “loss” of his privacy” and “made it difficult to grieve peacefully.

(In context: Former athlete Oscar Pistorius will be released after 10 years in prison: he shot and killed his girlfriend)

“We have always known that probation is part of the South African legal system and we have always said that the law must take its course.”“said Steenkamp, ​​although he stressed that “there can never be justice if your loved one will never return.”

“The conditions imposed by the parole board, which include anger management courses and programs on gender violence, send a clear message that gender violence is taken seriously,” he added.

This was the second time that Pistorius requested conditional release, 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 November hearing began where it was finally granted, June Steenkamp said she was not “convinced” that “Oscar has been rehabilitated,” according to a letter read by her lawyers.

Pistorius is serving time for shooting dead Reeva Steenkamp, ​​then 29, at her 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 him four times through the closed bathroom door. and has tried to defend without success that he panicked when he mistook the model for a thief who had entered the home through the bathroom window.

“I don't believe Oscar's version. (…) I don't know anyone who does. My dear daughter screamed for her life loud enough for the neighbors to hear,” he said last November in his letter. the victim's mother.

He did not see Pistorius' release from prison this Friday, however, the father of the murdered model, Barry Steenkamp, ​​who died at the age of 80 last September.

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 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.

EFE