Oscar Pistorius, a South African athlete currently serving 13-year imprisonment for killing his girlfriend, has asked a court to grant him early parole only halfway into his sentence.
On Valentine’s Day in 2013, the 36-year-old five-time Paralympic gold medalist fatally shot and killed his then-girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp through the bathroom door of his high-security home in Pretoria.
The athlete claimed he mistook the deceased for an intruder on the fateful day.
Consequently, Pistorius was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment in 2017 – he has been seeking every legal means to secure an early release from prison. Early this year, the Olympian was denied parole.
Pistorius is now asking a constitutional court to declare him eligible for parole, having only spent six years in prison as stressed that “staying longer in prison constitutes an infringement on his fundamental rights”, as he believes that he is eligible for early release.
However, the country’s top appeals court maintains that Pistorius must have spent at least seven years in prison out of the entire prison term given to him to be eligible for parole, but time spent on appeals and under house arrest has broken up the period of his imprisonment.
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