Oscar Pistorius, Olympic athlete convicted of murder, is released on parole

Oscar Pistorius, a once-inspirational figure who rose to international fame as an Olympic sprinter for South Africa before being convicted of murdering his girlfriend, will be released on parole, authorities said Friday.

A parole board granted Mr Pistorius’ request on the grounds that he had served half of his 15-year sentence, making him eligible for parole under South African law.

The Department of Correctional Services said in a statement that Mr Pistorius was a “first offender, with a positive support system” and therefore met the requirements for parole, following a hearing at the Atteridgeville Correctional Center outside South Africa’s administrative capital , Pretoria. .

Before his downfall, Mr. Pistorius was celebrated in South Africa and around the world as an athlete who overcame personal adversity as a double amputee and fought for the right to compete in the Olympic Games, earning the nickname Blade Runner for his carbon fiber prosthetic blades he raced with.

Mr Pistorius, 37, will be released on January 5, the statement said.

In March, the board denied Mr. Pistorius’ parole on a technicality: authorities had misjudged whether he had served the minimum required detention period, the Department of Correctional Services said at the time.

The calculation was based on a misunderstanding about when Mr Pistorius’ murder sentence began. Mr Pistorius was initially convicted of manslaughter, but prosecutors appealed and his conviction was upgraded to murder. An appeals court increased his sentence from six years to 15 years in prison, the minimum recommended by South African law for unpremeditated murder.

Mr Pistorius’ lawyers asked the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the country’s highest decision-making body, to rule on the parole. In October, the court ruled that Mr Pistorius had served the minimum term and ordered correctional services to process his parole application.

The legal uncertainty is reminiscent of the complexity of Mr Pistorius’s trial and eventual conviction for the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. Mr Pistorius shot Ms Steenkamp, ​​a model, through a closed bathroom door in the early morning hours of February 14, 2013.

He kept that up her death was an accident and that he had fired his gun believing an intruder had entered his luxury home on a security estate in Pretoria.

Prosecutors argued that Mr Pistorius killed Ms Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day in a jealous rage after an argument. During the trial, they pointed to text messages in which Ms Steenkamp said she feared Mr Pistorius’ temper as evidence of a volatile relationship between the couple.

As part of the parole process, the board heard from Ms. Steenkamp’s mother, June Steenkamp. During the hearing in March, the Steenkamp family lobbied against Mr Pistorius’s quest for freedom.

June Steenkamp was not present at the hearing and did not oppose Mr Pistorius’ parole, but she did question whether he had been rehabilitated. In a statement, she recalled evidence of Mr Pistorius’ temper, including the text messages and testimonials from former partners.

“I don’t know to what extent his bad behavior still exists or was evident during his captivity,” she said in a statement read by Rob Matthews, a family friend whose daughter was also killed by a partner, “but I am concerned about the safety of every woman if this had not been an issue in his rehabilitation process.”

Ms Steenkamp’s father, Barry Steenkamp, ​​died in September at the age of 80. In media interviews before his death, Mr Steenkamp claimed that Mr Pistorius had deliberately shot his daughter.

Mr Pistorius was celebrated in South Africa and around the world as an inspirational figure. He was born without a fibula in one of his legs, the bone that runs between the knee and the ankle, next to the tibia. His legs were amputated before his first birthday and he was walking on prosthetics before his second birthday.

At the age of 17, Mr Pistorius had done so won gold medals during the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens. Despite continued victories during the Paralympic Games, Mr Pistorius was determined to compete against able-bodied athletes.

The world athletics organization, the IAAF, turned down his bid to compete in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but after winning an appeal, he later qualified for and was allowed to compete in the London Games.

He ran the 400 meters at the 2012 London Olympics, becoming the first double amputee to compete in the Olympics. The fact that he won no medals did little to diminish his global profile.

His success on the track also brought wealth and a certain amount of infamy: He earned more than $1 million in endorsements with major brands and made headlines for crashing his boat in 2008 and for his extravagant taste in pets ( two African white tigers).

He also deserved a place People Magazine’s Sexiest Athletes ruse, as he and Ms Steenkamp regularly walked the red carpet in South Africa.