Oscar Pistorius is no longer in prison. After spending 11 years in prison for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, the former South African Paralympian was released on Friday, according to PEOPLE. Pistorius killed Steenkamp on Feb. 14, 2013, when he shot her four times through a bathroom door of their home in Pretoria. At the time, Pistorius said he fired his gun because he thought there was an intruder inside their home. He pleaded not guilty, but prosecutors argued he intentionally killed her in a fit of rage.
South Africa’s Department of Correction Services (DCS) confirmed “that Oscar Pistorius is now a parolee, effectively from 5 January 2024. He was admitted into the system of Community Corrections and is now at home.” In 2014, Pistorius was convicted of culpable homicide or manslaughter and was sentenced to five years in prison. He appealed, but in 2015, the Supreme Court of Appeal overturned the previous conviction and found him guilty of murder. The following year, Pistorius was sentenced to 13 years and five months in prison for the murder of Steenkamp.
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“Has there been justice for Reeva? Has Oscar served enough time?” Steenkamp’s mother, June Steenkamp, said in a statement, per BBC. “There can never be justice if your loved one is never coming back, and no amount of time served will bring Reeva back. We, who remain behind, are the ones serving a life sentence.”
On Nov. 24, Pistorius was granted parole and was scheduled to be released. He will finish the rest of his sentence at South Africa’s community corrections system. Pistorius will remain under DCS supervision until December 2029, which will be the end of his sentence, according to Reuters.
“I did take Reeva’s life, and I have to live with it,” Pistorius said in 2013 in an interview broadcast in 2016 on REELZ. “I can smell the blood. I can feel the warmness of it on my hands. And to know that that’s your fault, that that’s what you’ve done. And I understand the pain people feel that loved her and miss her. I feel that same pain, I feel that same hate for myself, I feel that same difficulty in understanding this. And I look back and I think – I always think, how did this possibly happen?” Pistorius competed as a sprinter in the Paralympics. In his career, the 37-year-old won eight Paralympic medals, including six gold in three different Paralympic games.
