Former Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius will be on parole from January 5, 2024, after being imprisoned since 2014 for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. This decision comes almost a decade after the tragic event that shocked the world on Valentine’s Day 2013.
Pistorius, who has just turned 37, has always maintained his version that the shooting of Steenkamp was an accident, a statement that has been the cause of controversy and pain, especially for Reeva’s mother, who has expressed her deep contempt for him. on various occasions. “I hate him. I want to hurt him. He’s a liar and he murdered my daughter,” she even told the Mail Online.
The athlete’s firm decision not to recognize the crime as an intentional act of violence has not been a determining factor in the decision of parole officials, who have based it on the time served of his 13-year sentence.
The Pistorius case has been complex from the beginning. He was initially convicted of manslaughter, but after a series of appeals by the prosecution, his sentence was raised to murder. The Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in 2017 that he must serve South Africa’s minimum sentence of 15 years for murder, but took into account time already served, resulting in a sentence of 13 years and five months.
An error in calculating the time Pistorius had served in prison led to the possibility of his parole. South African legislation allows convicted persons to be eligible for parole after serving half of their sentence. This error has been key in the hearing, in which his legal team has successfully defended that he can opt for early release.
Despite the news, Pistorius will have to spend Christmas behind bars. In addition, psychologists and social welfare officials will evaluate him before his release. He is expected to live with his uncle Arnold in a mansion in one of Pretoria’s most exclusive suburbs, a place of residence shared with government ministers and CEOs of big companies.
Pistorius, born with a congenital condition that led to the amputation of his legs below the knee when he was a baby, excelled in Paralympic athletics and broke barriers by competing at the 2012 London Olympics in carbon fiber prosthetics. His participation in the Olympic Games earned him great admiration and international recognition – he was considered the most important person in South Africa after Nelson Mandela – until his sporting career ended in 2013, although he has always maintained that it was an accident. .
Oscar Pistorius’s main argument to defend his innocence in the case of his girlfriend’s murder is based on the claim that it was a tragic accident. Thus, Pistorius maintains that he shot Steenkamp believing he was defending himself from an intruder.
Thus, according to his version, he thought that an intruder had entered his house while he was sleeping, and in a state of panic, he shot multiple times through the closed bathroom door, where Steenkamp was. However, this explanation has always been rejected by judges.
