Former South African Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius will be released on parole from prison on November 5, the South African department of correctional services, which assessed and decided on Pistorius’s request to leave prison, decided today.
Today, the South African champion appeared before a parole board at the prison where he is serving his sentence, in Pretoria.
Pistorius’ lawyer Conrad Dormehl had previously considered that “the best scenario would be an immediate release” this Friday.
However, lawyers for the victim’s family and legal experts consulted by AFP indicated that, even if Pistorius was granted parole now, it would take a few weeks for the former athlete to be effectively released. This is what happened, with parole granted, and release from January 5th of next year, according to Reuters.
Typically, the South African penal system applies the ‘one month policy’, in which inmates are placed on a 30-day program to prepare them to return to society, before being released.
Pistorius’ lawyer believed that immediate release “would not be impossible”, taking into account the media coverage of the case and an error in calculating the maximum period that the former athlete could have been in pre-trial detention.
It is recalled that, on February 13, 2013, Oscar Pistorius killed his partner, Reeva Steenkamp, aged 29, with four shots, fired through the bathroom door of the couple’s home, in Pretoria.
Pistorius was soon arrested and always denied having killed the model in a fit of rage or jealousy, claiming to have confused her with a thief who had entered the house.
2023-11-24 11:48:04
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