A court in South Africa has denied former athlete Oscar Pistorius an early release on bail. Since 2016, he has been in prison for the unintentional murder of a girlfriend. The Department of Correctional Services said that Pistorius had not yet served the minimum time after which he could ask for bail. The parents of the murdered woman also insisted on the ban on releasing it.
Oscar Pistorius was a Paralympic and Olympic sports star in the early 2010s. He was born without fibulae, his legs were amputated in infancy. The boy took his first steps on prostheses and mastered them like his own legs. Pistorius has been running since childhood and in his youth began to win at the Paralympic competitions.
He became the first disabled athlete to win the right to compete on an equal footing with able-bodied athletes. He played for the South African national team at the European Championships in Lignano (Italy), the World Championships in Daegu in Korea and the 2012 Olympics in London. He was a two-time silver medalist of the 2012 African Championship among healthy athletes.
In February 2013, Pistorius’ girlfriend Riva Steenkamp was murdered at Pistorius’s home. The athlete claimed that he woke up from the noise and decided that a robber had made his way into the house. He fired his own weapon through the door, but Stenkamp was behind the door. In 2014, a court sentenced Pistorius to five years in prison for negligent homicide. Later, the term was increased to six and then to 13 years in prison.
A spokesman for the prison where Pistorius is being held said that the athlete will be able to apply for early release in August 2024 at the earliest.
