Oscar Pistorius was with his family at his uncle’s mansion on Tuesday after the Olympic athlete who killed his girlfriend was released from prison under cover of darkness and moved to house arrest a day earlier than expected.
"Oscar is here, and Oscar is at home with the family," said Anneliese Burgess, the spokeswoman for Pistorius family outside ArnoldPistorius' home in Waterkloof, an upmarket suburb of South Africa’s capital Pretoria. "The family is happy that Oscar is at home," Burgess said.
Pistorius, the double-amputee runner who fatally shot Reeva Steenkamp in 2013, was moved from a central Pretoria jail on Monday night when he had been expected to be released on Tuesday.
He left the jail at 7:30 p.m. local time, the Department of Corrections said, and appears to have slipped unnoticed by media into the three-story, red-bricked home that stands behind ornate black gates.
The murder trial of Pistorius generated intense international interest. The surprising decision to release Pistorius a day early, and at night, appeared to have avoided the spectacle and logistical challenges caused by a large gathering of TV crews and other journalists hoping to catch a glimpse of Pistorius on the way out of prison, nearly a year to the day after he was sent to jail.
Pistorius has served a year of a five-year sentence for manslaughter for killing Steenkamp. Under South African law, he is eligible to serve the remainder under correctional supervision, a form of house arrest.
The decision to release the 28-year-old Pistorius early was only communicated to his family at short-notice, Burgess said. Confirming Pistorius' release, South Africa’s Department of Corrections said that the decision over when and how an offender is released is made by the prison. "The handling of the actual placement is an operational matter of the local management, and how they handle it is their prerogative that is carried out in the best interest of all parties concerned," Manelisi Wolela, a spokesman for the corrections department, said in a cellphone text message.
Pistorius will be under house arrest at the grand home with lush, landscaped gardens and a large, cross-shaped swimming pool. Under South African law, an offender sentenced to five years or less in jail can be released to correctional supervision after serving one-sixth of the term — in Pistorius' case 10 months.
The full conditions under which Pistorius must live for the next four years have not been released by the corrections department and Burgess would not detail them on Tuesday.
Pistorius was acquitted of murder last year for the Valentine’s Day shooting death of Steenkamp, but prosecutors have appealed the trial verdict of culpable homicide, or manslaughter, and will seek a murder conviction again at South Africa’s Supreme Court on Nov. 3.
If Pistorius is convicted of murder by a panel of five judges at the appeal, he faces going back to prison for 15 years.