Paralympian Oscar Pistorius was due to be released from prison today and moved to house arrest after serving 10 months of the five-year sentence he received last year for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp .
Recent reports claim the shamed paralympian is demanding
to be treated as a king - as a leading South Africa lawyer warned he
could be behind bars for years following the last minute decision not to release him early from his sentence for killing girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.
It is reported that Pistorius did not only have a bath
installed in his prison cell but was also given a new bed after he
complained the old one was uncomfortable.
According to South Africa's Judicial Inspectorate, the disgraced athlete has also been allowed to cook his own meals in Kgosi Mampuru II jail because he is paranoid that someone will try to poison him.
Oscar Pistorius looks unlikely to be released from prison on Friday(21st August 2015)
as had been expected, after South Africa's justice minister ordered a
review of his pending parole.
Pistorius was sentenced to five years in jail for culpable homicide
after he shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp through a toilet door on
Valentine's Day in 2013.
Having served exactly ten months in prison – the minimum period
stipulated by South African law – Pistorius was due to be transferred to
house arrest tomorrow, following a recommendation from a parole board
in June.
However, Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha
has stepped in, suggesting that the parole board's decision was
premature.
Masutha said that, according to his interpretation of the law,
Pistorius should not have been considered for parole until after the
ten-month period was completed.
"It is apparent therefore that the decision to release him on 21
August 2015 was made prematurely on 5 June 2015 when the offender was
not eligible to be considered at all," Masutha's office said.
Stephan Terblanche, a sentencing expert and professor at the University of South Africa, told CNN
it was common for parole boards to make decisions about inmates before
the minimum sentence was up and rare for a justice minister to get
involved in such a case.
Masutha apparently examined the decision after a women's group urged
him to halt the transfer. He announced yesterday that a parole review
board would examine the original recommendation, but offered no details
about when this might be completed
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