Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Oscar is safe, comfortable
He’s got a bath, new bed in jail
jail. “The first time I went to see him he was like ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone.’
“Now he can sit down and discuss and laugh at the same time.”
Mentoor said he would visit Pistorius on Monday. “I need to go check how he is doing now.”
Pistorius, 28, was jailed for five years in October for shooting his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
He was told on Wednesday that he would not be released from prison yesterday after serving a sixth of his sentence.
Justice Minister Michael Masutha said he had decided to stop his release, saying the decision was “premature”.
Pistorius now faces legal battles on two fronts – a review of the decision to free him into house arrest, and a bid by prosecutors to have him convicted
Mama Taxi
of murder which was launched this week.
William Booth, veteran Cape Town defence attorney, said the Paralympian would have to remain behind bars until the Parole Review Board next meets.
However, the chair of the board could arrange to convene urgently if its next scheduled sitting was some time away.
Booth said: “The way the whole thing has been dealt with is completely unfair. The justice minister has had many weeks in which to raise an issue with this and he didn’t – he has left it until the 11th hour after coming under some pressure from a woman’s rights organisation.”
But he said that Pistorius could, in any event, end up in prison for a long time. “There is a good chance that Pistorius’s conviction for culpable homicide will be overturned in favour of a murder conviction, and in that event his sentence would be increased substantially. If that happens, he will be sitting in jail for a very long time, possibly many years.”
The sprinter had been due to leave prison in Pretoria just two days after what would have been Steenkamp’s 32nd birthday.
The timing of Pistorius’s release had provoked widespread condemnation.
Yesterday, Mbuyiselo Botha, from Sonke Gender Justice, said recent events had given the country the opportunity to reflect on the Domestic Violence Act and interrogate it. “If he had just come out, it would have sent the wrong message: that if you are white and privileged you get preferential treatment. You may take a life and only go to jail for 10 months. It would have been inappropriate.”
Liz Giles, advocacy and communications manager at Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre, said the focus on the objection of the Progressive Women’s Movement of South Africa to Pistorius’s early release during women’s month distracted from more important “point of law” issues.
“The women of South Africa need a legal system that functions and adheres to the mandate under which it is constituted without bias or preference 365 days of the year,” Giles said. – Additional reporting by Fatima Schroeder and the Daily Mail.