Convicted killer Oscar Pistorius is getting a fresh shot at parole

Convicted killer Oscar Pistorius, once an Olympian, could be given a freedom date in days after a court identified a huge blunder.

File photo of Oscar Pistorius leaving the Pretoria High Court. (Photo by KAREL PRINSLOO / AFP)

Convicted killer Oscar Pistorius is to get a fresh chance to win his freedom after a blunder was exposed in his earlier parole bid.

The former Paralympian, who ran in the 2012 London Olympic Games, will now get an emergency parole hearing on Friday (Saturday AEDT), The Sun reports.

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Pistorius, 37, was wrongly ruled ineligible for early release from prison in March 2023.

The ex-sprinter shot dead model Reeva, 29, through the locked door of the bathroom of his home in Pretoria in the early hours of Valentine’s Day 2013.

Pistorius, who was known worldwide as the “Blade Runner” because of his carbon-fibre prosthetics, claimed he mistook her for an intruder.

File photo of Oscar Pistorius leaving the Pretoria High Court. (Photo by KAREL PRINSLOO / AFP)

Following a lengthy trial and several appeals, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 13 years and five months behind bars in 2017.

He was initially sentenced to six years in jail but the term was doubled after the state appealed it was too lenient.

In 2017, The Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that Pistorius should serve South Africa’s minimum sentence of 15 years for murder.

It took into account the year and seven months he had already served when it delivered the previous sentence of 13 years.

Since prisoners in South Africa are automatically eligible for parole consideration after serving half of their sentence, Pistorius’ lawyers appealed for an early release in March 2023.

Pistorius competing at the London 2012 Paralympic Games. (Photo by Adrian DENNIS / AFP)

But his application was rejected during a closed-door hearing as he “did not complete the minimum detention period”, it was reported.

The court, however, made an error by not counting another period Pistorius had served while his murder sentence was being appealed.

It meant that he was, in fact, eligible for parole earlier this year 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 - and now the Paralympian has been given another shot at his freedom.

The Department of Corrections stated a parole board will decide whether the inmate is “suitable or not for social integration”.

The decision to give Pistorius an emergency parole hearing on Friday is effectively an admission of the appeal court’s error, it was reported.

File photo of Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp. (Photo by LUCKY NXUMALO / AFP)

Meanwhile, Reeva’s family stand firmly against their daughter’s killer being granted freedom.

Earlier this year, Barry Steenkamp, Reeva’s father told MailOnline that Pistorius “should remain behind bars”.

Mrs Steenkamp told the news website: “I couldn’t see myself going without hurting him. I didn’t want to go to jail for attacking him. That would have been a great possibility.

“Things haven’t got better. It gets worse as time goes by because we miss Reeva every day that she is not here with us.

“It’s very, very stressful that she couldn’t spend our last days with us because he took her.

“Oscar has taken a lot away from us and her. So now instead of getting upset, I get angry. I am angry with him. It is a horrible thing to say, but I can’t stand him.”

A year before killing Reeva, Pistorius became the first double amputee to race at the 2012 Olympics.

He had both his legs amputated below the knee as a baby after being born without fibulas.

This article originally appeared in The Sun and was reproduced with permission