Oscar Pistorius to have another chance at parole after nearly a decade in prison

Oscar Pistorius pictured at the end of the fourth day of sentencing proceedings in the High Court in Pretoria, South Africa. Photo / AP

Oscar Pistorius will have a second chance at parole at a hearing on Friday after he was wrongly ruled ineligible for early release from prison in March.

South Africa’s Department of Corrections said in a statement sent to the Associated Press on Monday that a parole board will consider the former Olympic runner’s case again this week and decide “whether the inmate is suitable or not for social integration”.

Pistorius, a world-famous double-amputee athlete who broke barriers by competing on carbon-fibre running blades at the 2012 London Olympics, has been in prison since late 2014 for the shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. He was initially convicted of culpable homicide, an offence comparable to manslaughter, for shooting Steenkamp multiple times through a closed toilet cubicle door in his home in the South African capital, Pretoria, in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine’s Day, 2013.

His conviction was upgraded to murder and he was ultimately sentenced to 13 years and five months in prison after a series of appeals by prosecutors. Serious offenders in South Africa must serve at least half their sentence before they are eligible for parole.

Pistorius’ case and his parole eligibility have been complicated by those appeals by prosecutors, who first challenged his culpable homicide conviction and then a sentence of six years for murder, which they called shockingly lenient.

Oscar Pistorius leaves the High Court in Pretoria, South Africa on Tuesday, June 14, 2016 during his trial for the murder of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Photo / AP

The Supreme Court of Appeal eventually ruled in 2017 that Pistorius should serve South Africa’s minimum sentence of 15 years for murder, but took into account the year and seven months he had already served for culpable homicide when it delivered the sentence of 13 years and five months’ imprisonment.

However, the court made an error by not counting another period Pistorius had served while his murder sentence was being appealed, meaning he was in fact eligible for parole in March, when he was told at his first hearing that he would only be eligible in August 2024.

Pistorius’ lawyers took his case to the country’s apex Constitutional Court. The decision to give Pistorius another parole hearing on Friday is effectively an admission of the appeal court’s error.

Pistorius is not guaranteed to be granted early release. The parole board will take a number of factors into account, including his conduct and disciplinary record in prison, his mental health and the likelihood of him committing another crime.

He could be released on full parole or placed on day parole, where he would be allowed to live and work in the community but have to return to prison at night.

Pistorius was once one of the world’s most admired athletes and one of sports’ most heartwarming stories. He was born with a congenital condition that led to his legs being amputated below the knee when he was a baby, but he took up track and won multiple Paralympic titles on his running blades. He is the only double amputee to run at the Olympics.

Known as the “Blade Runner”, he was at the height of his fame when he killed Steenkamp months after the London Olympics. At his murder trial, he claimed he shot Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, by mistake with his licensed nine-millimetre pistol because he believed she was a dangerous intruder hiding in his bathroom in the middle of the night.

Pistorius will turn 37 on Wednesday and hasn’t been seen publicly for nearly a decade, although there have been occasional glimpses of his time in prison.

He sustained an injury in an altercation with another inmate over a prison telephone in 2017. A year earlier, he received treatment for injuries to his wrists, which his family denied were a result of him harming himself and said were caused by him falling in his cell.