New Delhi: South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius was released on parole Friday, nearly 11 years after killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentines’ Day.
Pistorius, known as the “Blade Runner” for his carbon-fiber prosthetic legs, was convicted in 2015 in a high-profile trial that drew worldwide attention.
He had served a little over half of his 15-year sentence.
Pistorius shot Steenkamp in February 2013 through a locked bathroom door in his Pretoria home, killing the model and reality star.
The double amputee, who garnered international acclaim first as a Paralympic athlete and then for competing in the Olympics, will be under parole supervision until 2029, when his sentence officially ends.
The former athlete, now 37, will live with his family in Pretoria, South Africa’s administrative capital. He will also have to attend rehabilitation programmes and is barred from drinking alcohol or any banned substances.
He will have to get permission to travel or work, which makes it unlikely Pisotorius will return to the running track soon.
While Pistorius’s parole decision is within South Africa’s incarceration regulations, some rights groups have said the decision came too early.
Non-profit group Women For Change, which advocates for the constitutional rights of women and children in South Africa, said on X: “South Africa, your justice system is rotten! Femicide is a pandemic in this country, and yet no one cares!”
The organisation shared another post, accompanied by the image of a text message Steenkamp had sent to Pistorius and which the prosecution used as evidence in the trial. She had said: “I’m scared of you sometimes. The way you snap at me.”
The group said releasing Pistorius early sent “the wrong message” to potential offenders.
“SA is subject to some of the highest rates of GBV (gender-based violence) in the world. If anything, we’ve only seen statistics rise since 2013. Things have only gotten worse,” the organisation’s spokesperson Bulelwa Adnonis told The Guardian.
The organisation had publicly opposed Pistorius’s parole bid last year. It further said: “We believe that granting parole to someone convicted of killing another person sends a concerning message about accountability and justice in our country.
We maintain that Oscar Pistorius should have served his full sentence for the brutal murder of Reeva.”
In his defence, Pistorius maintained that Steenkamp’s death was an accident, and that he mistook her for an intruder.
Prosecutors, however, cited text messages as evidence of a volatile relationship, and said he had shot her in a fit of rage after an argument.
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