Oscar Pistorius was with his family at his uncle’s mansion yesterday after the Olympic athlete who killed his girlfriend was released from prison under cover of darkness and moved to house arrest a day earlier than expected.
“Oscar is here, and Oscar is at home with the family,” said Anneliese Burgess, the spokeswoman for the Pistorius family, addressing dozens of reporters outside Arnold Pistorius’ home in Waterkloof, an upmarket suburb of Pretoria.
“The family is happy that Oscar is at home,” Burgess said.
Photo: AFP
Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee runner who fatally shot Reeva Steenkamp in 2013, was moved from a central Pretoria jail on Monday night when he had been expected to be released yesterday.
He left the jail at 7:30pm, the South African Department of Corrections said, and appears to have slipped unnoticed by media into the three-story, red-bricked home that stands behind ornate black gates.
Oscar Pistorius’ murder trial generated intense international interest. The surprising decision to release him a day early, and at night, appeared to have avoided the spectacle and logistical challenges caused by a large gathering of TV crews and other journalists hoping to catch a glimpse of him on the way out of prison, nearly a year to the day after he was sent to jail.
He has served a year of a five-year sentence for manslaughter for killing Steenkamp. Under South African law, he is eligible to serve the remainder under correctional supervision, a form of house arrest.
The decision to release the 28-year-old athlete early was only communicated to his family at short-notice, Burgess said.
Confirming the release, the corrections department said that the decision over when and how an offender is released is made by the prison.
“The handling of the actual placement is an operational matter of the local management, and how they handle it is their prerogative that is carried out in the best interest of all parties concerned,” Manelisi Wolela, a spokesman for the department, said in a cellphone text message.
Burgess was surrounded by reporters and camera crews — many of whom had camped out at the house overnight — when reading a prepared statement outside Arnold Pistorius’ house yesterday morning.
Apparently responding to criticism that Oscar Pistorius’ release after just a year in prison was too lenient, Burgess said the sentence “has not been shortened or reduced.”
“He now enters the next phase of his sentence. He will serve this under the strict conditions that govern correctional supervision,” she said.
Under South African law, an offender sentenced to five years or less in jail can be released to correctional supervision after serving one-sixth of the term — in Oscar Pistorius’ case 10 months.
Prosecutors have appealed the trial verdict of culpable homicide, or manslaughter, and will seek a murder conviction again at South Africa’s Supreme Court on Nov. 3.
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