'Blade Runner' Pistorius released on parole 11 years after murdering girlfriend

PRETORIA — South African former Paralympic star Oscar Pistorius has been released on parole, the country's prisons department said on Friday (Jan 5), nearly 11 years after murdering his girlfriend in a crime that shocked a nation long inured to violence against women.

Pistorius — dubbed "Blade Runner" for his carbon-fibre prosthetic legs — shot 29-year-old model Reeva Steenkamp dead through a locked bathroom door on Valentine's Day in 2013.

He has repeatedly said he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder when he fired four shots into the bathroom at his Pretoria home, and he launched multiple appeals against his conviction on that basis.

"The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) is able to confirm that Oscar Pistorius is a parolee, effectively from Jan 5, 2024. He was admitted into the system of Community Corrections and is now at home," the DCS said in a statement.

Pistorius, now 37, has spent about eight and a half years in jail as well as seven months under home arrest before he was sentenced for murder. A parole board in November decided he could be freed after completing more than half his sentence.

ALSO READ: Sixth-grade student killed in Iowa school shooting, suspect dead