Oscar Pistorius' release from prison to serve the remainder of a five-year manslaughter sentence under house arrest is the latest chapter in the story of the once-inspiring double-amputee runner who made history at the Olympics and then killed his girlfriend.
Pistorius
left jail late Monday, a day earlier than expected, after serving a
year of his sentence. He is expected to be confined to house arrest at
his uncle's mansion in the South African capital Pretoria for the next
four years.
However,
that could all change for the "Blade Runner" when he faces an appeal at
the Supreme Court in just two weeks. On Nov. 3, prosecutors will again
seek a murder conviction against him for shooting Reeva Steenkamp in
2013. If convicted of murder in that appeal, Pistorius could be sent
back to prison for 15 years.
Pistorius,
28, was born with a congenital condition and his legs were amputated
below the knee when he was less than a year old. He took up athletics as
a teenager with immediate success, breaking records and becoming a Paralympic champion for the first time in 2004, just months after he began running competitively.
He
fought athletics authorities and won the right to compete against
able-bodied runners on his trademark carbon-fiber blades, and ran at the
2011 world championships and the 2012 London Olympics — the first
amputee to do so.
Millions
who admired Pistorius as a symbol of triumph over adversity were
stunned when it emerged he had fatally shot Steenkamp in his home in
Pretoria in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine's Day 2013.
During
his dramatic seven-month murder trial last year, which attracted global
headlines, Pistorius testified he had mistaken his girlfriend for a
dangerous intruder in his home and shot her multiple times through a
toilet stall door in a tragic error. He was acquitted of murder and
found guilty of culpable homicide — a charge comparable to manslaughter —
and sentenced to five years in jail.
Prosecutors
said Pistorius had killed the 29-year-old model and law graduate
intentionally after a fight and will now ask South Africa's
second-highest court to convict the world-famous runner of murder.
Source: NY Times
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