Oscar Pistorius out of legal options as request to appeal rejected
Former star athlete loses bid to cut 13-year jail term for murder of Reeva Steenkamp
Paralympian Oscar Pistorius could be considered for parole if he participates in a meeting with the parents of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, whom he shot dead in 2013.
The sprinter has served half of his 13 years and five months sentence for the murder of Steenkamp, a term that was raised from an original five years for manslaughter by South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal in 2017.
He is now eligible for possible release, but must first participate in the country’s “restorative justice” process, which requires offenders to speak with victims or their family members.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A meeting between Pistorius and Steenkamp’s parents, Barry and June, has reportedly been arranged. The former athlete sent a letter to the couple, which the late model’s parents described as “emotionally distressing” during an appearance on Great Morning Britain (GMB) in last month.
The letter is “thought to be his first contact with the family since his 2014 trial”, said The Independent. When Pistorius took the stand on 7 April that year, he began his testimony by apologising to Reeva’s parents.
“I can’t imagine the pain and the sorrow and the emptiness that I’ve caused you and your family,” he said. “I was simply trying to protect Reeva. I can promise that when she went to bed that night she felt loved.”
Speaking on GMB recently, Barry said: “One day I would like to talk to Oscar man-to-man.”
But June would like Pistorius to see out his full sentence. “This has been a horror story for us,” she said. “We haven’t had the full story” and “he changed his mind three times under oath to a different story and we don’t believe that’s the truth”.
Steenkamp’s mother doesn’t think that she and her husband’s wishes are “going to have that much influence” over whether Pistorius is deemed eligible for parole. Pistorius’s lawyer Julian Knight told NBC News he was hopeful that the former athlete and the Steenkamps could meet before the end of the year.
The principle of “restorative justice” was formally introduced in South Africa in 1992.
It came about to address “the need to change the country’s retributive criminal justice system, based on Roman Dutch law, in order to accommodate indigenous African legal practices”, Dries Velthuizen, senior researcher at the Institute for Dispute Resolution in Africa, wrote on The Conversation.
“These practices are more participatory and reconciliatory” than retributive justice systems, which see offenders’ punishments “considered sufficient compensation to the victim and society”, he added.
Under this system, offenders are required to assume responsibility for actual harm done and take corrective action. “Important questions remain” about the system as a whole, said Velthuizen, and a significant one is whether the process can “achieve the desired outcome of restoration”.
But in South Africa, where “there is a dire need to promote good relations among people”, a justice system based on dignity, respect and good relations “might just contribute to a peaceful society”.
What happened to Reeva Steenkamp?
Pistorius and Steenkamp had been dating for three months before she was brutally killed. The athlete alleged that he had mistaken his girlfriend for an intruder on the night of the murder.
In the early hours of 14 February 2013, Pistorius fired four shots through a locked toilet door in his Pretoria home. Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, was stood on the other side of the door at the time.
The first bullet hit her right hip, and though the second missed, the third and fourth shots hit her right arm and head, according to police ballistics expert Chris Mangena, who testified in court the following year.
Steenkamp collapsed and “must have had both hands covering her head protectively”. The last shot broke her skull into two fragments.
The type of bullets in Pistorius’s 9mm pistol “were designed to cause maximum damage”, said The Guardian during the trial. On hitting the target, the bullet opens up and creates six talons, which can “[cut] through the organs of a human being”, said Mangena at the trial.
Pistorius then “bashed down the door with a cricket bat”, said Metro, before calling the police.
What happened during the trial?
During the initial six-month trial, an emotional Pistorius gave a version of events that took several turns, and he struggled to stay composed in court.
On one occasion, his body “jerked and he retched” as he listened to the pathologist’s evidence, said the BBC’s Pumza Fihlani, reporting from court. “A bucket was placed next to Mr Pistorius, who broke down in tears on several occasions.”
“A picture started to emerge of a much more complicated man, one born with a tremendous physical disadvantage but into economic privilege in a country where the gap between the haves and the have-nots can be staggering,” said E! online.
WhatsApp messages between Pistorius and Steenkamp were read out in which the deceased had told her boyfriend weeks before her murder: “I’m scared of you sometimes.”
At another point in the proceedings, the BBC’s Fihlani said there were “silent gasps” in the courtroom when Pistorius took off his prosthetic legs and walked to the bullet-holed toilet door.
The former athlete had been asked by the defence to demonstrate his height against the door, his head measuring just a few centimetres above the door handle. “On his stumps he seemed self-conscious,” said Fihlani.
On 12 September 2014, Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled that the prosecution had not proven beyond reasonable doubt that Pistorius had intended to kill Steenkamp. He was acquitted on the charge of murder, “a verdict with which many South Africans, including legal experts, disagreed”.
The case was brought to the Court of Appeal and in 2015, Pistorius was found guilty of murder.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Today's political cartoons - March 16, 2024
Cartoons Saturday's cartoons - pointed commentary, Haiti in trouble, and more
By The Week US Published
-
5 hilarious cartoons about the RNC's MAGA takeover
Cartoons Artists take on RNC funding, Lara Trump, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Trump's presidential run: a bad bet for Republicans?
Talking Point The GOP is taking a 'big gamble' on former president's 2024 White House bid
By The Week UK Published
-
Why are kidnappings in Nigeria on the rise again?
Today's Big Question Hundreds of children and displaced people are missing as kidnap-for-ransom 'bandits' return
By Julia O'Driscoll, The Week UK Published
-
Deaths of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies hang over Sydney's Mardi Gras
The Explainer Police officer, the former partner of TV presenter victim, charged with two counts of murder after turning himself in
By Austin Chen, The Week UK Published
-
How the idyllic Galapagos Islands became staging post in world drug trade
Under the radar Ecuador's crackdown on gang violence forces drug traffickers into Pacific routes to meet cocaine demand
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Armed gangs, prison breaks and on-air hostages: how Ecuador was plunged into crisis
The Explainer Gangs launch deadly revenge after president declares state of emergency following escape of feared drug boss from prison
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Ecuador tips toward chaos amid prison breaks, armed TV takeover
Speed Read New President Daniel Noboa authorized the military to 'neutralize' powerful drug-linked gangs after they unleashed violence and terror across Ecuador
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Prague shooting: student kills 14 people at university
Speed reads Police believe suspect, who killed himself, may have shot his father before carrying out mass murder
By Arion McNicoll, The Week UK Published
-
Ex-US diplomat confessed spying for Cuba to undercover agent, FBI says
Speed Read DOJ says former US ambassador Manuel Rocha perpetrated 'one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent'
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Oscar Pistorius is released from prison on parole
Why everyone's talking about Former sprinter to see out remaining six years of his sentence at uncle's Pretoria home
By Keumars Afifi-Sabet, The Week UK Last updated