2023-11-24 17:29:24
Conditions for parole will run for five years, the department said.
Double-amputee Olympian Oscar Pistorius was paroled on Friday, 10 years after shooting his girlfriend to death through a bathroom door at his home in South Africa, an event that shocked the world.
Pistorius will be released from prison on January 5, explained the spokesman for the Department of Penitentiary Institutions, Singabakho Nxumalo.
He will only be able to leave the Pretoria area, where he is preparing to settle, with permission from the authorities. In addition, he will have to attend sessions to learn how to control his anger and perform community service, Nxumalo said.
Conditions for parole will run for five years, the department said.
“Probation does not mean the end of the sentence. It is part of the sentence. It only means that the prisoner will complete the sentence outside of a penal institution,” Nxumalo said.
Nxumalo said the monitoring officer will have to be notified of any important events in Pistorius’ life, including whether he wants to move or get a job.
“You will have to inform us of each and every one of your activities,” Nxumalo commented.
Pistorius will not wear a monitoring bracelet because he is not part of South Africa’s parole process, Nxumalo clarified. Pistorius’ sentence expires on December 5, 2029.
The decision to grant parole was reported during a prison hearing this Friday.
The runner, who turned 37 this week, has been in prison since late 2014 for the murder of model Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day the previous year.
In 2015, he spent time under house arrest while one of the multiple appeals in his case was resolved. In the end he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 13 years and five months in prison.
In South Africa, those convicted of serious crimes must serve at least half of their sentence to be eligible for parole.
Pistorius was at the peak of his career and one of the most admired athletes in the world when he murdered Steenkamp.
He shot him several times in the bathroom of his Pretoria mansion in the early hours of the morning with his 9 mm caliber pistol, for which he had a permit.
The parole hearing Friday was the second in eight months. An appeals court ruled in March that he was ineligible for parole, which was due to an error about the date his sentence officially began.
Pistorius was initially found guilty of manslaughter – that is, unintentional – for Steenkamp’s death. Prosecutors appealed and the sentence was changed to simple homicide. At the same time, the sentence was extended from six years to 13 years and five months.
Pistorius testified at his trial that he killed Steenkamp by mistake, convinced that a dangerous intruder had hidden in his bathroom late at night and so he shot him four times with his licensed 9mm pistol.
Prosecutors argued that Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and reality TV star, had locked herself in the bathroom during a late-night brawl and Pistorius killed her in a fit of rage.
The victim’s father, Barry Steenkamp, died in September. The mother, June Steenkamp, did not oppose probation.
During his parole process, Pistorius is expected to live in his uncle’s luxurious mansion in a wealthy suburb of Pretoria and where he lived during the trial.
Pistorius was first sent to Pretoria Central Prison, an infamous prison during apartheid.
In 2016 he was moved to Atteridgeville Correctional Centre, where he will leave in just over a month when the world will see Pistorius for the first time in more than a decade.
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