PISTORIUS TO BE FREED
Jailed for five years, he did 10 months
OSCAR PISTORIUS is to be freed from prison on August 21 under house arrest, 10 months after he was jailed for killing his model girlfriend.
Pistorius was acquitted of murdering Reeva Steenkamp, but found guilty of manslaughter by shooting at her four times through a locked toilet door on St Valentine’s Day 2013. He was sentenced to five years’ jail, but was eligible for release after serving just a sixth of his sentence under ‘‘correctional supervision’’.
Correctional supervision is usually given to offenders who commit serious crimes but are not deemed a danger to the community, and are not bestserved by a long stretch in South Africa’s notoriously dangerous and overcrowded prisons.
Pistorius’ good behaviour in prison was taken into account, and his family will have been checked to ensure they will hold him to his release conditions.
WHERE WILL HE GO?
At first, Pistorius will live under virtual house arrest at his uncle’s home in Pretoria’s upmarket Waterkloof suburb. He could be eligible to take part in an electronic tagging programme, or will have to check in regularly with a parole officer and at first will be allowed to leave the house only to go to work or to run the occasional errand. As well as the habitual parole conditions including abstaining from alcohol and drugs or touching guns, he is likely to be told to undertake anger management courses as well as community service. He has said he wants to work with children, but plans described at his trial to work at his uncle’s school in Mozambique are likely to be scuppered by his strict release conditions.
CAN HE COMPETE AGAIN?
It’s unlikely. Even if the conditions of his release allowed him to travel or compete, the International Paralympic Committee has said he will be banned from the Rio Games and can compete only after he has completed his five-year sentence. It means the next Olympic Games he could potentially compete in would be at Tokyo in 2020, by which time he will be 33 and his physical condition may have irreversibly declined.
WHAT ABOUT REEVA’S FAMILY?
Her parents Barry and June wrote to the parole board urging them not to release him early, but the release was approved anyway. June Steenkamp told her local newspaper The Citizen his early release sent the wrong message to other would-be offenders. ‘‘I don’t think it’s a good idea to let him back in society so quickly,’’ she said. ‘‘He shot my daughter through that door where she had no space to move or defend herself. One of the bullets blew her brains out, it is disgusting what he did to her – 10 months is just not enough.’’
AND SOUTH AFRICANS? AREN’T THEY OUTRAGED?
The ANC Women’s League, which attended the athlete’s lengthy trial and frequently held noisy demonstrations outside the court, is expected to be out in force when he is released on August 21.
Steenkamp’s family have made their displeasure clear and her friends are equally dismayed by the release, but most have declined to speak publicly.
As for the South African public, they’ve got a lot to be outraged about these days – a huge gap between rich and poor, a president whose 260 million rand (NZ31m) of taxpayer-funded upgrades to his private estate have been described as ‘‘obscene’’, and the failure to sack the country’s police chief despite a damning report into the police shooting of 34 striking miners in August 2012. South Africans protest frequently, mostly over wages and lack of basic services in townships, but it’s unlikely they’ll take to the streets in any numbers because of Pistorius.
SO THAT’S IT? CASE OVER?
Not exactly. South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal will in November consider an application by the prosecution for the trial judge’s verdict to be upgraded to one of murder. Prosecutor Gerrie Nel argues that Thokozile Masipa, the trial judge, erred in her decision to acquit the athlete of murder under the principle of dolus eventualis, because he should have known that firing at Steenkamp four times through a locked bathroom door would have resulted in her death. Should the court, based in the Free State city of Bloemfontein, grant the appeal, Pistorius could be resentenced to a minimum of 15 years behind bars.