Oscar Pistorius due for a parole hearing
FORMER Paralympian Oscar Pistorius might be released on parole soon.
His parole hearing will be held on March 31, having been convicted of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in February 2013.
As in other parole hearings, this will also be a closed session.
Tania Koen, the lawyer acting on behalf of Reeva’s parents, June and Barry Steenkamp, said that they were aware of the hearing. She, however, did not want to comment further.
Koen said they had been notified about it by the Department of Correctional Services but didn’t comment on whether they would oppose the parole bid or not.
The hearing followed an uphill battle by Pistorius to be reconsidered for parole. He launched an application last year but the hearing never went ahead as the matter was removed from the court roll by agreement.
The Supreme Court of Appeal, meanwhile, cleared the confusion over his time spent in jail following the various appeals and orders it had issued.
In papers filed in his application to compel the parole board to convene and consider his parole, Pistorius said that, according to him, he was eligible to be considered for parole in February 2021 already as he had served half his prison sentence of 15 years imposed by the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA).
But prison authorities said in their court papers that according to their calculations, he would have only served half his sentence in March this year.
The confusion followed the various appeals and orders issued by the SCA after trial Judge Thokozile Masipa of the North Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, sentenced him to six years in prison in October 2014.
The State appealed the verdict, and the SCA convicted Pistorius of murder in 2017 and upped his sentence to 13 years and five months.
This, in effect, meant he would be eligible for parole this year.
But at that stage, he had already served slightly more than 500 days behind bars in terms of his culpable homicide conviction.
But, the Supreme Court again amended his sentence and ruled the 13 years and five months sentence should be antedated to the date in 2014 when he was initially sentenced by Judge Masipa.
Meanwhile, Pistorius earlier had a meeting with Barry Steenkamp, Reeva’s dad, as part of a victim and offender dialogue.
It is part of restorative justice and forms part of the record before the parole board.
According to an affidavit filed by Pistorius, he was last year told by the authorities at the Atteridgeville prison that his parole hearing was due to take place in October last year. But because all the reports that had to serve before the board were not in place, the hearing didn’t take place.
Pistorius said he had, meanwhile, done everything within his power to ensure that all the forms from his side were in place.