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| FILE - In this Friday, Oct. 17, 2014 file photo, Oscar Pistorius is escorted by police officers as he leaves the high court in Pretoria, South Africa. A South African official says Oscar Pistorius has been released from prison and placed under house arrest. Manelisi Wolela, a spokesman for South Africa's correctional services department, said the double-amputee Olympic runner who fatally shot his girlfriend on Valentine's Day 2013 was put under "correctional supervision" late on Monday, Oct. 19, 2015. |
JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee Olympic runner
who fatally shot his girlfriend in 2013, was released from prison and
placed under house arrest on Monday night, a South African official
said.
"Oscar Pistorius was placed under
correctional supervision tonight," Manelisi Wolela, a spokesman for
South Africa's correctional services department, said in a cellphone
text message sent to journalists.
Wolela cited
officials at Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre, a prison in the
South African capital of Pretoria where Pistorius had served nearly a
year of his five-year sentence for manslaughter.
The
correctional services department had originally said Pistorius would be
released from the Pretoria jail on Tuesday in line with a decision by a
parole board at the prison.
"The handling of
the actual placement is an operational matter of the local management,
and how they handle it is their prerogative that is carried out in the
best interest of all parties concerned, the victims, the offender and
the Department of Correction Services," Wolela said in a second text
message.
The murder trial of Pistorius
generated intense international interest, and the surprising decision to
release Pistorius a day early, and at night, appeared to have avoided
the logistical challenges and spectacle associated with a large
gathering of TV crews and other journalists hoping to catch a glimpse of
Pistorius on the way out of prison.
While out
on bail during his trial, the 28-year-old Pistorius had stayed at his
uncle's mansion in an upmarket suburb of Pretoria. However, an
Associated Press journalist outside the house said no one had gone in or
out of the main entrance of the house on Monday night.
Under
South African law, an offender sentenced to five years or less in jail
can be released after serving one-sixth of the term - in Pistorius' case
10 months.
Pistorius was acquitted of murder
last year for the Valentine's Day shooting death of girlfriend Reeva
Steenkamp, but prosecutors have appealed the trial verdict of culpable
homicide, or manslaughter, and will seek a murder conviction again at
South Africa's Supreme Court on Nov. 3.
If
Pistorius is convicted of murder by a panel of five judges at the
appeal, he faces going back to prison for 15 years, the minimum sentence
for murder in South Africa, which no longer has the death penalty.
Pistorius
has maintained he thought Steenkamp was an intruder in his Pretoria
home and killed her by
mistake. Prosecutors said he shot her
intentionally during an argument after she had fled to a bathroom stall.
While
under house arrest, Pistorius will have to live under certain
conditions until his sentence ends on Oct. 20, 2019. Pistorius will have
to continue receiving psychotherapy and cannot handle any firearms, the
corrections department previously said.
Wolela,
the correctional services department spokesman, had not ruled out
ultimately allowing Pistorius to return to training. He also said
Pistorius would not be required to wear an electronic tagging device.
Pistorius,
known as "Blade Runner" for his carbon-fiber running blades, gained
worldwide fame when he ran against able-bodied athletes at the 2012
London Olympics, the first amputee runner to compete at the games.
