Disgraced South African Olympic and Paralympic track star, Oscar Pistorius, is due to be freed from the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre in Pretoria on Friday, but will remain under house arrest, 10 months after he was jailed for killing model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Pistorius was acquitted of murdering Steenkamp deliberately but found guilty of culpable homicide by shooting at her four times through a locked toilet door on Valentine’s Day on February 14, 2013.
He was sentenced to five years in prison but was eligible for release after serving just one-sixth of his sentence under “correctional supervision”.
Correctional supervision is usually given to offenders who commit serious crimes but are deemed to be not a danger to the community and are not best-served by a long stretch in dangerous and overcrowded prisons.
Good behaviour in prison was taken into account and his family will have to ensure they will hold him to his release conditions.
He will live at his uncle Arnold’s home in Pretoria’s upmarket Waterkloof suburb.
He could be taking part in an electronic tagging programme or will have to check in regularly with a parole officer – and at first will be allowed only to leave the house to go to work or run the occasional errand.
As well as the habitual parole conditions such as abstaining from alcohol and drugs or touching guns, he is likely to be instructed to undertake anger management courses as well as community service.
It’s unlikely that Pistorius will compete in athletics again, even if the conditions of his release allow him to travel or compete.
This is after the International Paralympic Committee said he will be banned from the Rio Games and can compete only after he has completed his five-year sentence.
It means the next Olympic Games in which he could potentially compete will be the Tokyo Games in 2020, by which time he’ll be 33 and his physical condition may have declined.
In November, the Supreme Court of Appeal will consider an application by the prosecution for the trial judge’s verdict to be upgraded to one of murder.
Prosecutor Gerrie Nel argued that Judge Thokozile Masipa erred in her decision to acquit the athlete of murder under the principle of dolus eventualis, because he should have known that firing four times through a locked bathroom door would have resulted in death.
Should the court grant the appeal, Pistorius could be re-sentenced to 15 years behind bars.