He finally remains in prison: the former South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius, sentenced for the murder of his companion Reeva Steenkamp ten years ago, saw his request for parole refused on Friday.
• Read also: Oscar Pistorius meets his victim’s parents
• Read also: South Africa: possible parole for Oscar Pistorius
The process had been going on for months. Last year, Pistorius even met the parents of his victim for mediation, a necessary step before a possible early release. The prison administration had assured that the fallen star was eligible.
But to everyone’s surprise, the ad hoc committee meeting in the morning at Atteridgeville prison, near Pretoria, where the 36-year-old ex-athlete is detained, estimated that the latter had no did not serve the minimum time required.
“The inmate has not completed the minimum detention period, as decided by the Supreme Court of Appeal,” the prison administration said in a statement.
Under South African law, a convicted murderer is eligible for sentence adjustment following half of their sentence has expired. Oscar Pistorius was sentenced in 2014 to five years at first instance. And finally in 2017, following several calls, at thirteen years and five months.
The Supreme Court of Appeal, in a memo sent to the commission and of which AFP had a copy, estimated that the count should begin on the date of the last decision, postponing a possible release until next year.
“It’s an extraordinary decision, which even seems implausible,” Kelly Phelps, a law professor at the University of Cape Town, told AFP. According to her, the parole procedure was launched “hastily” and “should not have taken place on that date”.
The lawyer for the victim’s parents welcomed a decision extending Pistorius’ detention until at least August 2024, when his request can be reconsidered. But “this whole procedure has resulted in unnecessary trauma for both parties”, regretted Me Tania Koen.
According to the Steenkamp parents, the former sportsman “showed no remorse”.
The mother, June Steenkamp, who spoke at the hearing held behind closed doors, told the press that she still did not believe “in her story”, believing that Oscar Pistorius never admitted the truth regarding what happened on February 14, 2013.
In the early hours of that Valentine’s Day, Pistorius fired a gun through his bedroom bathroom door. Reeva Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, is shot four times.
Rich, famous, the six-time Paralympic champion had entered the legend of sport a year earlier by aligning himself with the able-bodied in the 400 meters at the London Olympics, a first for a double amputee.
“Blade Runner”, his nickname in reference to his carbon prostheses, was arrested in the early morning. He pleads misunderstanding, said he believed that a burglar had entered his ultra-secure residence.
During his first trial, broadcast live on television in 2014, the ex-star appeared in tears, vomiting when reading the autopsy report. He was sentenced to five years in prison for manslaughter.
The prosecution finds the justice too lenient, appeals and reclassifies as murder. The legal saga keeps the media spellbound, the world is passionate regarding this extraordinary case.
On appeal, Pistorius stands on his stumps in an attempt to win the judge’s sympathy. He is sentenced to six years in prison.
The prosecution once once more considers the sentence insufficient. In 2017, the Supreme Court of Appeal sentenced him to 13 years and 5 months in prison. Dropped by his sponsors, ruined, the fallen idol sells his house to pay his lawyers.
