Former Paralympian Oscar Pistorius, convicted of murdering Reeva Steenkamp, is set for a possible parole date review this Friday.
UPDATE: Following deliberations, the Department of Correctional Service’s parole board released Oscar Pistorius to serve the remainder of his sentence as a provisionally free man. See the department’s statement below.
Will Oscar Pistorius be released on parole? – Here’s what we know
The parole board is scheduled to review Pistorius’s profile on Friday, 24 November 2023, to determine his suitability for social reintegration.
This review will decide if he is eligible for parole and, if granted, set a potential release date.
Pistorius’s initial request for parole was denied in March 2023 as he hadn’t completed the required minimum detention period.
In South Africa, prisoners are typically eligible for parole after serving half their sentence. There was confusion over the calculation of Pistorius’s detention period due to his multiple appeals and subsequent convictions.
The Constitutional Court’s recent ruling clarified that an inmate’s detention period count should start from the initial incarceration date, impacting Pistorius’s parole eligibility.
According to the department’s parole policy, offenders can qualify for conditional release once they’ve served half their sentence.
However, this is not as cut-and-dry as it may seem. When an offender is convicted, his tenure in prison is monitored by a sentence plan which, as stipulated by the department, includes reviews on his or her road to rehabilitation.
If it was determined that Pistorius needs extensive education and counselling during the commission of his sentence, a case management committee appointed by the DCS will observe the offender’s compliance with the requirements of the sentence plan and meet with the convict every six months until his time is served.
The other aspect the parole board has to consider is whether Pistorius has been rehabilitated. Throughout the trial and conviction, the Paralympian has maintained that on that fateful night, where he discharged four gunshots in the toilet Steenkamp was in, he truly believed he was defending himself against a burglar.
This assertion contradicts extensive forensic and circumstantial evidence, including witness accounts from neighbours of the estate he resided in who claimed to have heard a scuffle and screams some time before Steenkamp was fatally shot.
Whether he still holds this belief will weigh heavily in the parole board’s determination of his remorse.
Pistorius was arrested in February 2013 for the murder of Reeva Steenkamp, having shot her four times through a bathroom door.
His initial manslaughter conviction in 2014, with a five-year sentence, was later appealed by prosecutors, leading to a reclassification to murder. In 2016, he was found guilty of murder and received a 13-year sentence in 2017.
Known as the Blade Runner for his carbon-fibre prosthetics, Pistorius made history as the first double amputee to compete in the Olympics at the 2012 London Games.
His trial and subsequent conviction garnered significant global attention due to his athletic fame and the shocking nature of the crime.