Oscar Pistorius to walk free from prison 11 years after killing girlfriend

On Valentine’s Day in 2013, Oscar Pistorius pulled the trigger four times on his 9mm pistol as Reeva Steenkamp stood inside a locked toilet cubicle in his home.

The vital question has still never been answered: Did the Olympic runner know he was shooting at and killing his girlfriend?

Only Pistorius really knows for sure what he did, and he may be the only person who ever will.

Pistorius told his televised 2014 murder trial that he had mistaken noises behind the bathroom door for an intruder and had not fired at his girlfriend in rage, as the prosecution alleged.

Having had previous death threats and break-ins, Pistorius said he slept with a 9-mm pistol under his bed in his plush Pretoria home in the heart of a well-secured gated community. At his trial, the court heard that the ammunition in the weapon was designed to inflict maximum damage to the human body.

The former Paralympic star will walk free on Friday 5 January.

Pistorius claimed he thought Ms Steenkamp was an intruder when he shot her, but was convicted of culpable homicide, a crime similar to manslaughter, in 2014.

Oscar Pistorius, who was born without fibulas and had both legs amputated below the knees before his first birthday, was once seen as the embodiment of human triumph over adversity.

The Johannesburg-born athlete gained global fame in the early 2000s, when he won Paralympic gold in the 200 metres at the Games in Athens.

Pistorius then set his sights on running against able-bodied athletes at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but was barred from competing in the event by World Athletics – then called the International Association of Athletics Federations.

The ban was eventually overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but Pistorius failed to qualify for the Olympics, coming within 0.70 seconds of the qualifying standard for the 400 metres in Beijing.

Undeterred, he swept that year’s Paralympics, taking home the 100, 200 and 400m gold medals, before launching a bid to qualify for 2012 Olympics in London.

This time he was successful, and reached the 400m semi-finals and competed for South Africa in the 4x400m relay.

He also won another three Paralympic medals that year but then, on 14 February 2013, he shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

A gun enthusiast, he told the trial he had believed Steenkamp was an intruder when he shot her several times with ammunition designed to inflict maximum damage to the human body. It was an account he repeated over the years.

He was initially jailed for five years in 2014 for culpable homicide. That sentence was changed to six years after the Supreme Court of Appeal in late 2015 found him guilty of the more serious charge of murder, later increasing it to 13 years after prosecutors argued the punishment was too lenient.

Reeva Steenkamp’s family lawyer said in November that they were not surprised by the parole decision, issued after Oscar Pistorius had completed a set portion of his sentence.

In the run-up to the parole hearing, Reeva Steenkamp’s mother June released a statement saying she was not convinced Pistorius had been rehabilitated. However, she said she had no objections to his release.

After Pistorius was granted parole, June Steenkamp lauded the parole board’s efforts in involving the victims.

Pistorius’ lawyer and family did not comment.

Several factors are typically taken into account by a parole board, including the nature of the crime, the possibility of reoffending, conduct in prison, physical and mental wellbeing and potential threats a prisoner may face if released.

Prior to his parole, Oscar Pistorius also participated in the restorative justice programme – a system introduced after the end of apartheid to deal with apartheid-era crimes in a more participative and reconciliatory way.

It is based partly on how indigenous cultures handled crime long before Europeans colonised South Africa, with the aim of bringing affected parties in a crime together to find closure, rather than merely punishing perpetrators.

An integral part of the restorative justice programme is a victim-offender dialogue that brings parties affected by a crime together to try to achieve closure. Participation is voluntary.

Pistorius was moved to a prison closer to where the Steenkamp family stayed in late 2021, ahead of reconciliation talks aimed at a potential early release from prison.

He and the late Barry Steenkamp – Reeva’s father – participated in the victim-offender dialogue on 22 June 2022.

Oscar Pistorius – a South African national known as the “Blade Runner” for his carbon-fibre prosthetic legs – became eligible for parole in March 2023 after he had served half of his 13 years and five months sentence for murder.

He was granted parole on 24 November, to take effect on 5 January.

South Africa’s Department of Correctional Services (DCS) said in November that Pistorius would complete the remainder of his sentence in the country’s community corrections system.

He will be under the supervision of the DCS and will be subjected to parole conditions until his sentence expires in December 2029.

He will be assigned a monitoring official, who will have to be kept informed when Pistorius is seeking job opportunities or moving homes.

As part of the conditions, Pistorius will not be allowed to consume alcohol and other prohibited substances, and will be restricted from doing media interviews, the DCS said.

He will also be expected to be home at particular hours of the day. The DCS did not specify the hours in a statement issued on Wednesday.

Pistorius will also have to attend programmes on gender-based violence and continue therapy sessions on anger management, a lawyer for the Reeva Steenkamp family said shortly after he was granted parole.

He is expected to live in Pretoria.

During his time in prison, Pistorius had a few run ins with other inmates and suffered injuries. In 2017, he was injured in a prison fight over the use of a public phone, according to a South African prison official.

The double amputee, who is set to be released on Friday, was left with bruising after the altercation, the Department of Correctional Services said.

“Oscar Pistorius sustained a bruise following an alleged incident with another inmate over the use of a public phone in the special care unit where both offenders are detained at Attridgeville correctional centre,” Singabakho Nxumalo, a prison spokesman, said at the time.

Reaction to Oscar Pistorius’ parole has been muted in South Africa, a stark contrast to the first days and months after Reeva Steenkamp’s killing, which enraged many and sparked angry protests outside of Pistorius’s court hearings calling for him to receive a long prison sentence. There is no death penalty in South Africa.

“He has ticked all the necessary boxes,” said Themba Masango, secretary general of Not In My Name International, a group that campaigns against violence against women. “And we can only wish and hope Oscar Pistorius will come out a better human being.”

“We tend to forget that there is a possibility where somebody can be rehabilitated.”

Some of Oscar Pistorius’ parole conditions include restrictions on when he’s allowed to leave his home, a ban on consuming alcohol, and orders that he must attend programs on anger management and on violence against women.

He will have to perform community service.

Pistorius will also have to regularly meet with parole officials at his home and at correctional services offices and will be subjected to unannounced visits by authorities. He is not allowed to leave the Waterkloof district without permission and is banned from speaking to the media until the end of his sentence. He could be sent back to jail if he is in breach of any of his parole conditions.

South Africa does not use tags or bracelets on paroled offenders so Pistorius will not wear any monitoring device, Department of Corrections officials said. But he will be constantly monitored by a department official appointed to his case and will have to inform the official of any major changes in his life, such as if he wants to get a job or move house.

Reeva Steenkamp’s family did not oppose Oscar Pistorius’s parole application in November, although her mother, June Steenkamp, said in a victim statement submitted to the board that made the decision that she didn’t believe Pistorius had been fully rehabilitated and was still lying about the killing.

The Corrections Department has emphasised that his release — like every other offender on parole — does not mean that he has served his time.

In 2022, Pistorius met Steenkamp’s father Barry during a process known as victim-offender dialogue – part of South Africa’s restorative justice programme that brings parties affected by a crime together in a bid to achieve closure.

Few details were made public about the meeting and Steenkamp’s father died in 2023.

Her mother June said in a statement before the parole hearing for Pistorius, now 37 years old, that she was not convinced he had been rehabilitated.

But she added that she had forgiven him “long ago as I knew most certainly that I would not be able to survive if I had to cling to my anger”.