South African Paralympian Oscar Pistorius was denied parole Friday after a hearing at a prison in Pretoria, South Africa’s administrative capital. Pistorius ki*lled his girlfriend 10 years ago, which is a very bad thing to do.
The 36-year-old double-amputee sprinter, who was known as the ‘Blade Runner’ because of his carbon fibre prosthetic legs, shot Reeva Steenkamp four times through a locked bathroom door at his home in Pretoria early on Valentine’s Day 2013. She was 29 years old and a pretty good model and law graduate.
The trial of Oscar Pistorius was shown all over the world, and the details of Steenkamp’s death shocked people. The case ended the career of a groundbreaking athlete who made history by competing in the Olympics against athletes who could walk.
The Department of Correctional Services in South Africa said that Pistorius would be considered for parole again in August 2024. They said that he would not be released now because “he did not complete the minimum Detention Period as ruled by the Supreme Court of Appeal.”
The lawyer for the Steenkamp family, Tania Koen, said in a statement after the parole board’s decision, “We are pleased with today’s decision, but today is not a time to celebrate.” Our hearts will always hurt when we think about Reeva. We believe in fairness and hope that it always wins.
Pistorius has always said that he shot Steenkamp by accident because he thought she was a burglar, but he was found guilty of murd*er in the end. South African law says he can be freed now that he has served half of his 13-year and 5-month sentence.
It’s likely that Pistorius would have had to wear a security tag and not go anywhere outside of Gauteng Province, which is made up of Johannesburg and Pretoria, if he got out of jail early. He would have stayed under the watchful eye of the authorities and kept all of his appointments until the end of his sentence.
As part of the process for getting parole, Pistorius met with Steenkamp’s father, Barry, in June 2022. Her family didn’t want him to be freed because they still don’t believe Pistorius’ story about how their daughter was ki*lled.
June Steenkamp, Reeva’s mother, went to the hearing on Friday to give the parole board written and spoken statements about how the mur*der of Reeva has changed their lives.
“They don’t think he is rehabilitated until he comes clean,” Koen told reporters outside of the Atteridgeville Correctional Centre prison before the hearing.
Pistorius’ long trial began in 2014, and prosecutors have since filed two appeals. At first, the multiple Paralympic champion was found guilty of culpable homicide, which is similar to manslaughter, for shooting Steenkamp.
In 2015, though, prosecutors appealed the manslaughter verdict and got a mur*der conviction.
Pistorius was given a six-year prison sentence for mur*der, but prosecutors again argued that the sentence was “shockingly light.” His sentence was then raised to 13.5 years in prison by the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2017.
“It was all over the news at the time,” Glenda Daniels, an associate professor of media studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, told NBC News. “It was on every TV station, radio station, newspaper, website, social media, and so on.” “The trial was so important that it got its own TV channel.”
Ad
Daniels said that the trial was watched around the world for many reasons, but the main ones were that Pistorius was “a loved character” in the sports world, both locally and internationally, and the couple was famous.
Pistorius was born with a condition that meant both of his legs had to be cut off below the knees when he was 11 months old.
But he became famous all over the world for his athletic achievements. He led the South African team at the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, just days before he became the first double amputee to compete against athletes who weren’t disabled. He would go on to make it to the semi-finals in his best event, the 400m.
As an Olympian, he held the world record and won the gold medal. This led to lucrative sponsorship deals with Oakley and Nike, but those deals were put on hold when Steenkamp died.
Someone who used to be Pistorius’ girlfriend told the court that he had a gun with him “all the time,” even while he slept on his nightstand.
Pistorius told the judge that he shot Steenkamp because he was afraid of someone breaking into his house. While he was living in South Africa, he was followed, shot at, and kidnapped. He told Reeva’s family he was “just trying to protect her.”
It occurred to me that someone was breaking into my house. At first, I just stood there. “Get some weapons,” was the first thing that came to his mind, he told the court.
At one point, the athlete threw up and cried in court as he looked at pictures of Steenkamp’s body up close.
They had only been together for two months when they got into a fight over a conversation Steenkamp had with a man at an event in January 2013 without introducing Pistorius to him.
He said, “I was a little upset; I felt ignored.” “I was too sensitive because I was scared, angry, or insecure.” I should have been nicer to her.
A month before the shooting, she sent him a WhatsApp message that said, “I’m scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me.”
What did Steenkamp have planned for her lover tomorrow? That was the tweet she sent the day before she was ki*lled. “Get excited for Valentine’s Day.”
