Oscar Pistorius – live: Paralympian to leave prison 11 years after killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp

South African former Paralympic star Oscar Pistorius is set to be released on parole on Friday, nearly 11 years after murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in a crime that shocked a nation long inured to violence against women.

Pistorius – dubbed “Blade Runner” for his carbon-fibre prosthetic legs – shot the 29-year-old model dead through a locked bathroom door on Valentine’s Day in 2013.

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.

Serious offenders in South Africa are eligible for parole after serving at least half of their sentence, which Pistorius has done.

Oscar Pistorius, 37, is expected to initially reside at his uncle’s luxurious mansion in the upscale Pretoria suburb of Waterkloof, where he lived during his dramatic murder trial and was held under house arrest for a period from 2015-2016.

On Thursday, bright yellow traffic barriers had been placed across a road leading to his uncle’s house, possibly in preparation for Pistorius’ arrival.

The multiple Paralympic champion will live under correctional supervision until the remainder of his murder sentence of 13 years and five months expires in December 2029, the Department of Corrections said.

Oscar Pistorius is due to be released from prison today to live under strict conditions at a family home having served nearly nine years of a murder sentence for the shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

The double-amputee Olympic runner from South Africa is set to leave the Atteridgeville Correctional Centre in Pretoria after being approved for parole in November, the second time he had applied.

It will give the world a chance at its first glimpse in nearly a decade of the one-time sporting superstar who stunningly fell from grace after shooting Steenkamp multiple times through a closed toilet door at his home in the predawn hours of Valentine’s Day 2013.

South Africa’s Department of Corrections declined to give any detail of when and how Pistorius would be released, saying “inmates and parolees are never paraded.” Pistorius’ public profile “does not make him different from other inmates nor warrant inconsistent treatment,” the Department of Corrections said in a statement Wednesday.

Oscar Pistorius’s release from prison on parole sends the “wrong message” to potential offenders, a women’s charity warned.

Bulelwa Adonis, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Women for Change, said gender-based violence had only got worse in South Africa since Pistorius murdered his girlfriend in 2013.

“If anything, we’ve only seen statistics rise since 2013. Things have only got worse,” she said. “What we perceive is that our government, our SA leaders, haven’t taken gender-based violence seriously,” Ms Adonis told the Guardian.

On Valentine’s Day in 2013, Oscar Pistorius pulled the trigger four times on his 9mm pistol as Reeva Steenkamp stood inside a locked toilet cubicle in his home.

The vital question has still never been answered: Did the Olympic runner know he was shooting at and killing his girlfriend?

Only Pistorius really knows for sure what he did, and he may be the only person who ever will.

Pistorius told his televised 2014 murder trial that he had mistaken noises behind the bathroom door for an intruder and had not fired at his girlfriend in rage, as the prosecution alleged.

Pistorius – known as the “Blade Runner” for his carbon-fibre prosthetic legs when he was an athlete – became eligible for parole in March 2023 after he had served half of his 13 years and five months sentence for murder.

He was granted parole on 24 November 2023 to take effect on 5 January 2024.

South Africa’s Department of Correctional Services (DCS) said in November that Pistorius would complete the remainder of his sentence in the country’s community corrections system.

Former Paralympic star Oscar Pistorius will be released from prison on Friday after he was granted parole nearly 11 years after killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

On February 14, 2013, he shot and killed Steenkamp before being sent to jail after a high-profile trial in South Africa.

Pistorius became eligible for parole in March 2023, after he had served half of his 13 years and five months sentence for murder and was duly granted parole on 24 November, which will take effect on 5 January.

Reeva Steenkamp, 29, had been in a relationship with Pistorius for just three months when he shot her four times through a locked bathroom door on Valentine’s Day in 2013.

Reeva was born in Cape Town and raised in Port Elizabeth as one of three siblings. “There’s a space missing inside all of the people that she knew that can’t be filled again,” her brother Adam said in his eulogy at her funeral.

“We’re going to keep all the positive things that we remember and know about my sister and we will try and continue with the things that she tried to make better. We’ll miss her.”

Reeva Steenkamp’s father, who has since died, described a “traumatising” face-to-face meeting with his daughter’s murderer Oscar Pistorius last year.

Speaking on the 10th anniversary of the killing, Barry Steenkamp opened up about the prison cell confrontation he had with the former Paralympian.

“He wasn’t wailing and crying like a baby, tears came into his eyes, yes. But it wasn’t that dramatic that he was wailing and crying like a baby. It was really traumatising for myself.”

Reeva Steenkamp’s mother June described her daughter as “beautiful” who would light up a room with her presence in a victim impact statement given before Pistorius’s parole hearing last year.

Steenkamp’s family spokesperson, Rob Matthews, read a victim impact statement from June Steenkamp ahead of his hearing.

“Reeva was born a miracle, she entered our lives after medical experts predicted that I would have difficulty conceiving after a miscarriage. From a very young age, she had the ability to light up a room with her presence,” the statement read.

Mrs Steenkamp also said she did not believe Pistorius had thought her daughter was an intruder, which he claimed during his trial.

Despite saying her daughter’s death left a “massive hole” in the life of her family, she said she had forgiven Pistorius as she “would not be able to survive if I had to cling to my anger”.