Nearly eleven years after being guilty of the murder of his partner, Reeva Steenkamp, former South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius was released from prison on the morning of Friday January 5 and placed on parole. “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 37-year-old former double amputee athlete, who has served more than half of his sentence, must leave Atteridgeville prison, a suburb of the capital, Pretoria. For “security” reasons, neither the time nor logistical details have been communicated by the authorities. The six-time Paralympic champion is banned from speaking in the media.
“We who are still here are sentenced to life,” said the victim’s mother, June Steenkamp, in a written statement. Responding to the question of whether “justice has been served to Reeva” and whether “Oscar has served sufficient time,” she said that “there is never justice, to the extent that your loved one will never return.”
The Steenkamp family did not formally oppose the ex-champion’s conditional release. But June Steenkamp said she still did not believe “Oscar’s version of the facts” and was convinced that the latter “had not rehabilitated himself” in detention.
“I don’t believe his story.”
During the night of February 13-14, 2013, Oscar Pistorius, in his ultra-secure Pretoria home, shot 29-year-old model Reeva Steenkamp four times through the bathroom door.
A year earlier, the six-time Paralympic champion had entered sporting legend by lining up with the able-bodied in the 400m event at the London Olympic Games, a first for a double leg amputee.
“Blade Runner”, as he is nicknamed because of his carbon prosthetics, claims to have believed in the presence of an intruder. He was sentenced to five years in prison for manslaughter following his first trial in 2014. Judging this verdict to be too lenient, the prosecution requested a reclassification as murder. In 2017, the Supreme Court of Appeal finally sentenced him to more than thirteen years in prison. Abandoned by his sponsors, ruined, the fallen athlete had to sell his house to pay his lawyers.
As part of his request for conditional release, obtained on November 24, Oscar Pistorius met in 2023 with the parents of Reeva Steenkamp. A mandatory step, which, according to the authorities, ensures that detainees “recognize the harm caused.”