The ex-Olympic runner was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2017 after he was found guilty of murdering Ms Steenkamp (Picture: AP)
Oscar Pistorius has been granted parole a decade after killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
The ex-Olympic runner will released from prison on January 5, the Department for Correctional Services has confirmed.
Earlier today he appeared before a board at a correctional centre in Pretoria, South Africa in what was his second bid to be released from jail.
He was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2017 after he was found guilty of murdering Ms Steenkamp.
Pistorius killed the model in the early hours of Valentine’s Day 2013, firing four times through the bathroom door of his ultra-secure Pretoria house.
He had pleaded not guilty and denied killing his girlfriend in a rage, saying he mistook her for a burglar.
Ms Steenkamp’s mother, June, did not oppose parole, saying she ‘does not have the energy’ to face Pistorius again.
But in a statement to the board, she said he had not shown true remorse.
Reeva Steenkamp was murdered by Pistorius on Valentine’s Day 2013 (Picture: Gallo Images/Shutterstock)
June Steenkamp said Pistorius had not shown ‘true remorse’ (Picture: REUTERS)
‘Rehabilitation requires someone to engage honestly, with the full truth of his crime and the consequences thereof. Nobody can claim to have remorse if they’re not able to engage fully with the truth,’ she said.
‘I do not believe Oscar’s version,’ she said in her submission to the board that was read to the media outside the detention centre by a family spokesman.
‘My dear child screamed for her life loud enough for the neighbours to hear her’.
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Nevertheless, she said she forgave the former sprinter ‘long ago, as I knew most certainly that I would not be able to survive if I had to cling to my anger’.
Reeva’s father Barry died in September aged 80.
‘I’ve no doubt that he died of a broken heart,’ the widow said in her statement.
Pistorius had pleaded not guilty to murder (Picture: AP)
The parole board reviewed whether he is fit for social reintergration, the department of correctional services said.
Pistorius lost a first bid in March when the board found Pistorius had not completed the minimum detention period required to be let out.
The Constitutional Court last month ruled that was a mistake, paving the way for a new hearing.
Offenders in South Africa are automatically eligible for parole consideration after serving half of their sentence.
Lawyers for Pistorius have said they hope that the delay caused by the mistake made in calculating the minimum detention period earlier this year will be taken into account and the ex-athlete be granted “an immediate release” on Friday.
Normally, it can take weeks before a prisoner who is granted parole is effectively discharged.
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