Oscar Pistorius’ parole hearing after nearly a decade in prison

Oscar Pistorius will have a second chance at parole at a hearing on Friday after he was wrongly ruled ineligible for early release from prison in March.

South Africa’s department of corrections said in a statement sent to The Associated Press on Monday that a parole board will consider the former Olympic runner’s case again this week and decide “whether the inmate is suitable or not for social integration.”

Pistorius’ case and his parole eligibility have been complicated by those appeals by prosecutors, who first challenged his culpable homicide conviction and then a sentence of six years for murder, which they called shockingly lenient.

The Supreme Court of Appeal eventually ruled in 2017 that Pistorius should serve South Africa’s minimum sentence of 15 years for murder, but took into account the year and seven months he had already served for culpable homicide when it delivered the 13 years and five months sentence.

However, the court made an error by not counting another period Pistorius had served while his murder sentence was being appealed, meaning he was in fact eligible for parole in March when he was told at his first hearing that he would only be eligible in August 2024.

Pistorius’ lawyers took his case to the country’s apex Constitutional Court. The decision to give Pistorius another parole hearing on Friday is effectively an admission of the appeal court’s error.

Pistorius was once one of the world’s most admired athletes and one of sports’ most heartwarming stories. He was born with a congenital condition that led to his legs being amputated below the knee when he was a baby, but he took up track and won multiple Paralympic titles on his running blades.

Known as the “Blade Runner,” he was at the height of his fame when he killed Steenkamp months after the London Olympics. At his murder trial, he claimed he shot Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, by mistake with his licensed 9 mm pistol because he believed she was a dangerous intruder hiding in his bathroom in the middle of the night.

Pistorius will turn 37 on Wednesday and hasn’t been seen for nearly a decade, although there have been occasional glimpses of his time in prison.

He sustained an injury in an altercation with another inmate over a prison telephone in 2017. A year earlier, he received treatment for injuries to his wrists, which his family denied were a result of him harming himself and said were caused by him falling in his cell.