Oscar waits at uncle’s house
Prosecutors to argue for longer jail sentence for killing Steenkamp
OSCAR Pistorius spent yesterday at his uncle’s mansion after being moved from jail to house arrest, but the former track star faces another legal challenge next month when prosecutors argue at an appeal court that he should go back to prison for much longer for killing his girlfriend.
Pistorius, a double amputee who inspired millions when he ran against able-bodied athletes at the 2012 London Olympics, does not have to attend the November 3 hearing at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein.
He is likely to wait for the outcome in comfortable confinement at the Pretoria home of Arnold Pistorius, a wealthy businessman who watched from the gallery during his nephew’s trial for fatally shooting his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp.
Pistorius, who was acquitted of murder but convicted of the lesser charge of culpable homicide, spent a year of his five-year sentence in a Pretoria prison.
He is now staying in a redbricked home with landscaped lawns and a large, cross-shaped swimming pool in Waterkloof, an affluent suburb with treelined streets where some foreign ambassadors live.
“Oscar is here, and Oscar is at home with the family,” Anneliese Burgess, the spokeswoman for the Pistorius family, told reporters outside the home. She said the family were happy.
The media had yet to catch a glimpse of Pistorius, who was ferried from the prison to the house under cover of darkness on Monday night, a day earlier than expected.
Under South African law, an offender sentenced to five years or less in jail can be released to correctional supervision after serving one-sixth of the term. That’s 10 months in Pistorius’s case.
Authorities have said condi- tions for the house arrest include continued psychotherapy for Pistorius and a ban on any handling of firearms.
Typically, offenders under correctional supervision can only leave their home for specific reasons, such as to attend church or do grocery shopping.
They generally cannot leave the house at night.
Pistorius will not have to wear an electronic tagging device.
If the appeal court rejects the culpable homicide conviction and instead rules that Pistorius is guilty of murdering Steenkamp, he faces going back to prison for 15 years, the minimum sentence for murder in South Africa.
The appeal court has not said when it will rule in the case.