By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Former Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius is making another bid for early release from the prison where he is serving over 13 years for murdering his girlfriend.
Pistorius shot Reeva Steenkamp 10 years ago at his home in Pretoria in a killing that shocked the world, and was jailed for murder in 2016.
The parole hearing is at Atteridgeville prison, just outside Pretoria.
Steenkamp’s mother, June, is not opposing parole.
Rob Matthews, a man whose 21-year-old daughter was murdered in 2004 and who became a Steenkamp family friend, read out a statement from June Steenkamp outside the prison in which she said she was not opposing his parole and didn’t attend the hearing because “I simply cannot muster the energy to face him again at this stage.”
Nevertheless, “I do not believe Oscar’s version that he thought the person in the toilet was a burglar,” June Steenkamp said in the statement. “In fact, I do not know anybody who does. My dearest child screamed for her life. … I believe he knew it was Reeva.”
The parole boards take a wide range of factors into account, including the offender’s conduct in prison, their mental health and any risk posed to the community by their release. They also have various versions of parole available to them. Pistorius could be released on full parole or day parole, where he can live and work in the community but must return to prison at night.
Reeva Steenkamp’s father Barry died in September.
It is unclear how quickly the parole board will decide, but it could be fast. In the event Pistorius is granted parole, a date will be set for his release.
Among other factors, the parole board will consider Pistorius’s conviction, his conduct while in prison, and the risk he poses to the public.
Steenkamp, 29, was a law graduate and successful model.
She was killed when Pistorius fired four shots with a pistol through the door of a toilet cubicle at his Pretoria home in the early hours of Valentine’s Day in February 2013.
Pistorius, now 37, claimed at trial he thought an intruder was present in the house and that Steenkamp was still in bed.
He was convicted of murder in 2015 at the Supreme Court of Appeal having initially only been convicted of the lesser offence of culpable homicide.
The Supreme Court ruled that Pistorius’s account of the night “varied substantially” and that he had “fired without having a rational or genuine fear that his life was in danger”.
Steenkamp’s killing happened when Pistorius was at the height of his fame and just months after he had become the first double-amputee to compete at the Olympics. He was also a multiple Paralympic sprinting champion and one of sport’s most marketable figures, having overcome the amputation of both his legs below the knee as a baby to run on specially designed carbon-fiber blades.