Treatment of Oscar ‘not standard’
Following the Parole Review Board’s (PRB) decision to set aside the decision to grant Oscar Pistorius parole, the Pistorius family has said they are concerned about the legality of the decision.
On Monday, the board, sitting in Johannesburg, set aside the decision of Kgosi Mampuru Correctional Supervision and Parole Board to place Pistorius under correctional supervision, said department of correctional services spokesperson Manelisi Wolela.
Spokesperson for the Pistorius family, Anneliese Burgess, said: “We had put our trust in the correctional services system, but are very disconcerted by the constant delays in obtaining clarity on this matter.
“We are concerned not only about the legality of the Parole Board’s decision, but also about the fairness towards Oscar – and the many others – whose constitutional rights are being affected by the ongoing confusion around the timing of parole decisions.”
Burgess also said when Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha announced Pistorius’s release in August had been suspended, it was simply a procedural matter, based on his interpretation of the Correctional Services Act.
“Time has now cured this procedural issue and we cannot understand why the Review Board failed to reconsider the matter as it is empowered to do, and why the matter is now to be referred back to the Parole Board that has no reason to make a different decision from the one that was made in the first place,” Burgess said.
“This experience leaves us with the uncomfortable conclusion that the public, political and media hype that was allowed to develop around Oscar’s trial has undermined his right to be treated like any other prisoner.”
Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp through a locked toilet door in his Pretoria home on Valentine’s Day 2013.
He claimed he had mistaken her for an intruder.
In September last year, Judge Thokozile Masipa acquitted Pistorius of murder but found him guilty of culpable homicide and negligently discharging a firearm in a restaurant in Sandton in 2013. Pistorius was sentenced to five years in prison in the North Gauteng High Court after being found guilty of culpable homicide. –