New Delhi: Ex-Paralympian Oscar Pistorius has been released on parole from a South African jail, after serving nine years in prison for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Pistorius shot Reeva through the locked bathroom door of his mansion in Pretoria on Valentine’s Day 2013, later saying he had mistaken her for a burglar.
The decision to grant him parole was made last November, The Guardian reported.
“The Department of Correctional Services (is) able to confirm that Oscar Pistorius is a parolee, effectively from 5 January 2024. He was admitted into the system of Community Corrections and is now at home,” the country’s prisons department said in a statement on Friday.
The South African authorities emphasized that Pistorius’ “elevated public profile” would not afford him any special treatment.
The 37-year-old will be confined to his home for certain hours of the day and is banned from drinking alcohol. He will have to get permission to travel or take up employment while also not permitted to speak to the media.
The South African athlete, who had his lower legs amputated as a baby, had become an Olympic sprinter whose high-tech prosthetics earned him the nickname “Blade Runner”, was eventually convicted of murder in 2015 after an appeal court overturned an earlier verdict of culpable homicide.
He has been in prison since October 2014, when he was first convicted and started a five-year jail sentence.
Later, he was released to house arrest to serve the rest of his sentence at his uncle’s home. But the next month, the supreme court of appeal overturned the lower judge’s ruling and found Pistorius guilty of murder.
In 2016, he was sentenced to six years in prison. The following year, the supreme court ruled that sentence was “shockingly lenient” and raised it to 15 years, minus time already served.
Pistorius achieved considerable success on the track, initially at the Paralympics where he secured numerous gold medals. His reputation was further solidified when he competed against able-bodied athletes at the 2012 London Olympics.
–IANS