By Ikugbadi Oluwasegun
Oscar Pistorius, former South African Paralympic star was released on parole on Friday after 11 years of murdering Reeva Steenkamp his girlfriend in a crime that shocked a nation inured to violence against women.
Oscar Pistorius who was dubbed “Blade Runner” for his carbon-fibre prosthetic legs – shot 29-year-old model Steenkamp dead through a locked bathroom door on Valentine’s Day in 2013.
He has repeatedly said he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder when he fired four shots into the bathroom at his Pretoria home, and he launched multiple appeals against his conviction on that basis.
Pistorius had spent about eight and a half years in jail as well as seven months under home arrest before he was sentenced for murder. A parole board in November decided he could be freed after completing more than half his sentence.
South Africa’s correctional services department said in a short statement that Pistorius had become a “parolee, effectively from 5 January 2024” and was now at home, without specifying where that was.
A monitoring official will keep an eye on him until his sentence expires in December 2029, whom Pistorius will have to inform if he seeks job opportunities or moves to a new address.