In reaction to Monday’s revelations that Oscar Pistorius will be freed on parole and put under house arrest, the family of Reeva Steenkamp have spoken out against the decision.

Former Paralympic champion Pistorius was found guilty of Steenkamp’s culpable homicide (the South African legal equivalent of manslaughter) in October last year, after a lengthy trial that caught the attention of the world’s press. He was jailed for five years, but is now eligible for early release to a state of house arrest having served one-sixth of his sentence and displayed good behaviour, according to Agence France-Presse.

Oscar PistoriusOscar Pistorius

The parole board are reported to have overruled an emotional submission from the 29 year old victim’s parents at a hearing last week. Barry and June Steenkamp told the board: “We have forgiven Mr Pistorius even though he took the life of our precious daughter, Reeva. Our lives will never be the same as we live with the sadness of her death every day.”

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“Reeva had so much to offer this world and we were all robbed of her life when she was killed. As her family, we do not seek to avenge her death and we do not want Mr Pistorius to suffer; that will not bring her back to us. However, a person found guilty of a crime must be held accountable for their actions.”

Pistorius, now aged 28, became a global superstar when he competed in the Paralympics and Olympics with prosthetic limbs. He killed Steenkamp, his model and law graduate girlfriend, by shooting her four times through a locked bathroom door at his home in Pretoria on February 14th, 2013. During the trial, the court accepted his defense that he had mistaken her for a burglar, and therefore did not convict him of murder.

The decision of the parole board, which will see him placed under stringent house arrest terms (e.g only one hour of time allowed to be spent outside the house each day), was heavily criticised by gender rights activists in South Africa, who have pointed out that it sends out the wrong message in a society that has one of the highest intimate partner homicide rates in the world.

However, Pistorius’s freedom may not even last that long. It was also announced on Monday that an appeal against his conviction for culpable homicide, brought by prosecution officials convinced that his original sentence was not high enough, will be heard in November. They will argue that the judge in the case, Thokozile Masipa, misinterpreted the law and should have tried him for murder.

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