Reeva Steenkamp killer Oscar Pistorius not eligible for parole yet

PRETORIA - The court application by convicted murderer Oscar Pistorius to compel the chairperson of the Atteridgeville Correctional Centre to hold a parole hearing for him is no longer going ahead at this stage.

The matter was on the roll before the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, last week and due to be heard on Friday. However, the judge assigned to the case removed it from the roll by agreement between the parties.

Lawyer Julian Knight, acting for Pistorius, remained mum about the reason for this when asked by the Pretoria News. Asked whether the application was no longer going ahead, Knight only said, “not at the moment”.

Correctional Services also didn’t respond to a question on whether it had agreed to go ahead with a parole hearing for Pistorius.

In papers filed in his application to compel the parole board to convene and to consider his parole, Pistorius said according to him, he was eligible to be considered for parole in February last year already as he had served half of his prison sentence.

According to the calculations of Pistorius and Knight, he has served half of the total of 15 years imposed by the Supreme Court of Appeal.

But prison authorities said in their court papers that according to their calculations, he would have only served half of his sentence in March next year.

The confusion regarding his time spent in jail followed the various appeals and orders issued by the Supreme Court after trial Judge Thokozile Masipa of the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, sentenced him to six years in prison in October 2014.

The State appealed against the verdict, and the Supreme Court convicted Pistorius of murder in 2017.

The Supreme Court upped his sentence to 13 years and five months’ imprisonment. This in effect meant that he would be eligible for parole in 2023.

But at that stage he had already served slightly more than 500 days behind bars in terms of his culpable homicide conviction.

But the Supreme Court again amended his sentence and ruled the 13 years and five months sentence should be antedated to the date in 2014 when he was initially sentenced by Judge Masipa. Taking this into account, Knight said that he had thus already served half of his jail time.

Both Correctional Services and Knight had earlier issued letters to the Appeal Court in an attempt to clear up the confusion. It is not clear whetherit had indeed been done. Meanwhile, Pistorius earlier had a meeting with Barry Steenkamp, the father of murdered Reeva Steenkamp, as part of a victim and offender dialogue. It is part of restorative justice and forms part of the record before the parole board.

According to an affidavit filed by Pistorius, he was last year told by the authorities at the Atteridgeville prison that his parole hearing was due to take place in October last year. But because all the reports that had to serve before the board were not in place, the hearing didn’t take place.

Pistorius said he had, meanwhile, done everything within his power to ensure that all from his side was in place. He noted that he was a model prisoner. “I humbly submit that I have done everything in my power to rehabilitate, to conduct myself in such a manner as to constantly comply with the prison rules and to show full remorse.”

Pistorius said he had completed all possible programmes in prison and thus qualified for parole.

Timeline

• On March 3, 2014, Pistorius for the first time appeared in the High Court and was charged with one count of murder and three counts of contravening the Firearms Control Act.

• On September 12, 2014 he was found guilty of culpable homicide.

• On October 21, 2014 he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for culpable homicide and three years in jail, wholly suspended for five years, in respect of the firearm offence. The sentences ran concurrently.

• The State turned to the Supreme Court of Appeal in December 2014 on the conviction on culpable homicide.

• On November 3, 2015 the Supreme Court upheld the leave to appeal. It imposed a 13 year and five months sentence on November 24, 2017; finding Pistorius guilty of murder.

• On January 21 last year, the Supreme Court order was varied to read the sentence is antedated to July 6, 2016.

• On August 23 last year the Supreme Court again varied the sentence to read it is antedated to October 21, 2014.

Pretoria News