Oscar Pistorius, the former Olympic runner, will have a second chance at parole in a hearing scheduled for Friday. This comes after he was incorrectly ruled ineligible for early release from prison in March.
South Africa’s Department of Corrections announced in a statement on Monday that a parole board will review Oscar’s case this week to determine “whether the inmate is suitable or not for social integration.”
Oscar, a double-amputee athlete who made history by competing in the 2012 London Olympics on carbon-fiber running blades, has been in prison since late 2014 for the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.
He was initially convicted of culpable homicide, an offense comparable to manslaughter, for shooting Steenkamp multiple times through a closed toilet cubicle door in his home in Pretoria on Valentine’s Day 2013.
His conviction was later upgraded to murder following a series of appeals by prosecutors, and he was ultimately sentenced to 13 years and five months in prison.
In South Africa, serious offenders must serve at least half their sentence before they are eligible for parole.
Pistorius’ case and his parole eligibility have been complicated by these appeals by prosecutors, who first challenged his culpable homicide conviction and then a sentence of six years for murder, which they deemed shockingly lenient.
The Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in 2017 that Pistorius should serve South Africa’s minimum sentence of 15 years for murder.
However, the court made an error by not counting another period Pistorius had served while his murder sentence was being appealed, meaning he was in fact eligible for parole in March when he was told at his first hearing that he would only be eligible in August 2024.
Pistorius’ lawyers took his case to the country’s apex Constitutional Court. The decision to give Pistorius another parole hearing on Friday is effectively an admission of the appeals court’s error.
Pistorius is not guaranteed to be granted early release. A parole board takes a number of factors into account, including his conduct and disciplinary record in prison, his mental health, and the likelihood of him committing another crime.
Pistorius was once one of the world’s most admired athletes and one of sports’ most heartwarming stories. Known as the “Blade Runner,” he was at the height of his fame when he killed Steenkamp months after the London Olympics.
At his murder trial, he claimed he shot Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, by mistake with his licensed 9 mm pistol because he believed she was a dangerous intruder hiding in his bathroom in the middle of the night.
Pistorius turned 37 on Wednesday, November 22 and hasn’t been seen for nearly a decade.