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

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.”

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”.

South African former Paralympic star Oscar Pistorius is set to be released on parole on Friday, nearly 11 years after murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in a crime that shocked a nation long inured to violence against women.

Pistorius – dubbed “Blade Runner” for his carbon-fibre prosthetic legs – shot the 29-year-old model dead through a locked bathroom door on Valentine’s Day in 2013.

Pistorius, now 37, has spent about eight and a half years in jail as well as seven months under home arrest before he was sentenced for murder. A parole board in November decided he could be freed after completing more than half his sentence.

Serious offenders in South Africa are eligible for parole after serving at least half of their sentence, which Pistorius has done.

Oscar Pistorius, 37, is expected to initially reside at his uncle’s luxurious mansion in the upscale Pretoria suburb of Waterkloof, where he lived during his dramatic murder trial and was held under house arrest for a period from 2015-2016.

On Thursday, bright yellow traffic barriers had been placed across a road leading to his uncle’s house, possibly in preparation for Pistorius’ arrival.

The multiple Paralympic champion will live under correctional supervision until the remainder of his murder sentence of 13 years and five months expires in December 2029, the Department of Corrections said.

Oscar Pistorius is due to be released from prison today to live under strict conditions at a family home having served nearly nine years of a murder sentence for the shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

The double-amputee Olympic runner from South Africa is set to leave the Atteridgeville Correctional Centre in Pretoria after being approved for parole in November, the second time he had applied.

It will give the world a chance at its first glimpse in nearly a decade of the one-time sporting superstar who stunningly fell from grace after shooting Steenkamp multiple times through a closed toilet door at his home in the predawn hours of Valentine’s Day 2013.

South Africa’s Department of Corrections declined to give any detail of when and how Pistorius would be released, saying “inmates and parolees are never paraded.” Pistorius’ public profile “does not make him different from other inmates nor warrant inconsistent treatment,” the Department of Corrections said in a statement Wednesday.

Oscar Pistorius’s release from prison on parole sends the “wrong message” to potential offenders, a women’s charity warned.

Bulelwa Adonis, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Women for Change, said gender-based violence had only got worse in South Africa since Pistorius murdered his girlfriend in 2013.

“If anything, we’ve only seen statistics rise since 2013. Things have only got worse,” she said. “What we perceive is that our government, our SA leaders, haven’t taken gender-based violence seriously,” Ms Adonis told the Guardian.

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.

Pistorius – known as the “Blade Runner” for his carbon-fibre prosthetic legs when he was an athlete – 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 2023 to take effect on 5 January 2024.

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.

Former Paralympic star Oscar Pistorius will be released from prison on Friday after he was granted parole nearly 11 years after killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

On February 14, 2013, he shot and killed Steenkamp before being sent to jail after a high-profile trial in South Africa.

Pistorius became eligible for parole in March 2023, after he had served half of his 13 years and five months sentence for murder and was duly granted parole on 24 November, which will take effect on 5 January.