2024-01-05 10:38:02
Former South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius was released from prison on Friday, placed on parole almost eleven years following the murder of his partner, Reeva Steenkamp.
The 37-year-old former athlete with both legs amputated, who has served more than half of his sentence, left Atteridgeville prison, in the suburbs of the capital Pretoria, early this morning.
“He has been admitted to the community corrections system and is now at home,” the prison service said in a statement, confirming that his release on parole is now effective. The six-time Paralympic champion is prohibited from speaking to the media.
Four shots
On the night of February 13 to 14, 2013, Oscar Pistorius killed model Reeva Steenkamp, 29, by shooting four times through the bathroom door of her bedroom, in his ultra-secure house in Pretoria.
A year earlier, the athlete had entered the legend by lining up with the able-bodied in the 400 meters of the London Olympic Games, a first for a double amputee.
Arrested in the early morning of Valentine’s Day 2013, Pistorius denied having fired in a fit of rage, claiming to have believed in the presence of a burglar. A version that he maintained throughout the legal saga which kept the media in suspense for the following four years.
Convicted of murder in 2017
At the end of his first trial opened in 2014 and broadcast live on television, the runner nicknamed “Blade runner”, in reference to his carbon prostheses, received five years in prison for manslaughter.
But the prosecution considers the sentence “scandalously lenient” and calls for it to be reclassified as murder. After several calls and the crude reading of an autopsy report of the victim which caused the accused to vomit, the latter was finally sentenced at the end of 2017 to 13 years and 5 months in prison for murder.
South African law provides that a person convicted of murder is eligible for a reduced sentence once half of their sentence has been completed. At the end of November, the prison administration announced the early release of Oscar Pistorius.
The Steenkamp family did not formally oppose his parole. But June Steenkamp, the victim’s mother, said she still did not believe “Oscar’s version of the facts” and said she was convinced that the latter “did not rehabilitate himself” in detention.
ats/ami
1704452826
#South #African #runner #Oscar #Pistorius #released #parole #rts.ch
