Agence France-Presse:
Former South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius will remain in prison after a prison system commission turned down.
his request for parole on Friday. The athlete was convicted in 2013 of the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkaap.
The prison service said, in a statement, that the denial is related to the fact that Pistorius did not serve enough of his sentence.
“The reason given is that the detainee did not complete a minimum period of imprisonment, as decided by the Supreme Court of Appeal”, that is, the last instance of the Justice that condemned Pistorius in 2017, after multiple appeals, said the statement.
“The request was rejected” and “will be reviewed in a year,” the victim’s family lawyer, Tania Koen, told AFP.
An ad hoc committee (a court formed to analyze a specific case) met this Friday at Atteridgeville prison, near Pretoria, where the 36-year-old former athlete is serving his sentence of more than thirteen years.
South African law states that a person convicted of murder can obtain early release, provided he has served half the sentence.
“It’s an unusual decision, it even seems implausible,” Kelly Phelps, a law professor at the University of Cape Town, told AFP. According to her, the parole process was initiated “in a hurry” and “should not have taken place on that date”.
Reeva Steenkamp’s parents voiced their opposition to the relaxation of the sentence, considering that Pistorius never told the truth.
“I don’t believe your story,” the visibly distressed mother, June Steenkamp, told reporters who followed her arrival at the commission hearing.
– “Trauma inútil” –
Lawyer Tania Koen said June ended up not needing to testify in front of her daughter’s killer as per the commission’s decision.
The victim’s parents have been living “a life sentence” since Reeva’s violent death, Koen said. “You are missed every day,” she added.
“The whole procedure caused pointless trauma for both parties,” he lamented.
“They believe that he should not be released” because “he has not shown repentance and he is not rehabilitated, because if he were, he would have been honest and told the true story of what happened that night”, he insisted.
The prison administration explained that the commission should officially examine whether “the purpose of incarceration” was fulfilled.
The detainee’s behavior, physical and mental state, and risk of recidivism were also examined.
– The fall –
The case goes back ten years, in the early hours of Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2013.
When Pistorius fired a shotgun from behind the bathroom door of his home on Riva.
“And he was arrested in the morning. According to him, it was a mistake and he explained that he believed that a thief managed to break into his house, even with many security services.”
However, the prosecution considered the sentence too small and appealed to seek a conviction for first degree murder.
