The South African Department of Corrections announced on Friday that athlete Oscar Pistorius, who spent nearly nine years behind bars for the murder of his girlfriend, had been freed from prison on parole and was now back at home.
The government did not further detail Pistorius’s release. The news broke about 8:30 a.m., stating that the Olympic runner, who is well-known for being a double amputee, had been released early in the morning from the Atteridgeville Correctional Centre in Pretoria, South Africa.
Since killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013, Pistorius has served nearly nine years of his thirteen years and five months murder sentence. In November, his parole was granted.
In South Africa, parole is granted to serious offenders who have completed at least half of their sentence.
In a brief statement announcing Pistorius’ release, the Department of Corrections stated that it had “able to confirm that Oscar Pistorius is a parolee, effectively from 5 January 2024. He was admitted into the system of Community Corrections and is now at home.”
A police van was spotted parked outside of Pistorius’s uncle’s villa in the affluent Pretoria suburb of Waterkloof, where he was supposed to dwell initially.
Officials from the Department of Corrections had stated that Pistorius would not be “paraded” or have his release time known in advance in an effort to shield him from the spotlight that has followed him since early on February 14, 2013, he shot Steenkamp several times through a lavatory door at his house.
