Three strikes can dispatch Oscar back to jail
OFFICIALS quietly released Oscar Pistorius on Monday night to avoid escape bids by other inmates.
The Olympic athlete was scheduled to walk out of Kgosi Mampuru II Prison on Tuesday, but intelligence information suggested that opportunistic convicts had planned to use an anticipated media scramble at the prison to break out.
A senior correctional services official said he was released into the care of his uncle, Arnold Pistorius — the owner of the confirmed address provided for his release on correctional supervision.
“He was processed and the correct procedures were followed,” the official said.
The family were escorted home to ensure that the Waterkloof mansion was Pistorius’s destination as per the agreement with the department.
Pistorius was released this week having served a year of his five-year sentence for culpable homicide after shooting dead his girlfriend, Reeva Steen- kamp, in February 2013.
The official said Pistorius would be monitored like all parolees released on correctional supervision. In the event of him violating his conditions, Pistorius would be immediately contacted.
“Failure to respond will lead to him being given a notice” in terms of procedure, the official said.
Three strikes, and Pistorius could be taken back to prison for having violated his parole conditions, the official said.
“We are also preparing for a [potential] return based on the outcome of the court proceedings in November.”
The official was referring to the state’s Supreme Court of Appeal bid to have Pistorius’s conviction upgraded to murder.
Pistorius’s legal team reckon they need about five hours to convince a full bench at the court that he is not a murderer.
The athlete was convicted late last year after a marathon televised trial at the High Court in Pretoria.
While he waits for yet another day in court, Steenkamp’s mother, June, has delivered a speech her daughter had planned to give on the day she was killed.
On Wednesday, she launched the Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp Foundation for Abused Women and Children at St Dominic’s Priory School in Port Elizabeth, her daughter’s alma mater.
Reeva’s message was of her struggle to put herself through university and to make it as a model in Johannesburg.
For now, Pistorius is holed up in his family’s Waterkloof mansion.
An insider said his release was no cause for “celebration” as Pistorius still had another four years of his sentence to get through.
Family spokeswoman Anneliese Burgess said it was unlikely that the family would attend the hearing in Bloemfontein on November 3.
The state intends arguing that Judge Thokozile Masipa incorrectly applied the legal principle of dolus eventualis and that she should have convicted Pistorius of murder.
Pistorius’s defence contends that the judge was correct in her decision, and that the state is simply trying to reintroduce its failed case against the Blade Runner.