(Pretoria) The request for parole of the former South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius, convicted of the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, was refused on Friday, we learned from the family lawyer of the victim.
“I don’t know on what grounds the request was refused, we were only informed that it had been refused and that it would be reconsidered in a year,” Tania Koen told AFP.
An ad hoc committee met in the morning at Atteridgeville prison, near Pretoria, where he is being held. The 36-year-old ex-athlete, sentenced to more than 13 years in prison, was to defend his case there.
South African law provides that a person convicted of murder can benefit from early release once half of his sentence has elapsed.
The parents of Reeva Steenkamp, who was a model, were opposed to her early release, believing that Oscar Pistorius never told the truth.
“I don’t believe his story,” the visibly distressed mother, June Steenkamp, told reporters crowding around the car in which she arrived at the prison, to attend the commission hearing.
She did not testify in front of the murderer of her daughter, the commission having decided to hear the latter in a second time, said her lawyer Tania Koen.
The hearing is a “painful” moment for the victim’s parents who have been living “a life sentence” since their daughter’s violent death, Koen said. “They miss her every day.”
They “believe that he should not be released” because “he has shown no remorse and he is not rehabilitated because if he was he would have been honest and told the true story of what happened. happened that night,” she insisted.
The commission is responsible for “determining whether the objective of imprisonment has been achieved”, explained the prison administration, by examining the behavior of the inmate, his physical and mental state as well as the risk of recidivism.
If his release is refused, Oscar Pistorius may request a review of his request.
In the early hours of Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2013, Pistorius fired a rifle through his bedroom bathroom door. Reeva Steenkamp, 29, who came to spend the night at his home in Pretoria, was shot four times.
Rich, famous, the six-time Paralympic champion had entered the legend of sport a year earlier by aligning himself with the able-bodied in the 400 meters at the London Olympics, a first for a double amputee.
“Blade Runner”, his nickname in reference to his carbon prostheses, is arrested in the early morning. He pleads a mistake, explains that he believed that a burglar had managed to break into his ultra-secure residence.
During his trial, broadcast live on television for eight months in 2014, the ex-star appeared in tears, even vomiting when reading the autopsy report. He was sentenced to five years in prison for manslaughter.
The prosecution finds the justice too lenient and appeals to demand a conviction for murder. The legal saga keeps the media in suspense and the world is passionate about this extraordinary case.
On appeal, Pistorius appears before the judges on his stumps. A psychologist called by the defense describes a “broken” man. He was sentenced to six years in prison for murder.
The prosecution still considers the sentence insufficient. In 2017, the Supreme Court of Appeal sentenced him to 13 years and 5 months in prison. Dropped by his sponsors, ruined, the fallen idol sells his house to pay his lawyers.
