South African athlete Oscar Pistorius
is set to be released from prison on parole in August after serving 10
months for culpable homicide in the killing of his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, a family member said.
The
Olympic and Paralympic track star is currently serving a five year
prison sentence after being convicted in October following a seven-month
trial.
"Oscar will be released on parole by the end of August," a Pistorius family member who did not want to be named told Reuters.
Officials at South Africa's department of correctional services were not immediately available to comment.
The
release of Pistorius, whose lower legs were amputated when he was a
baby, was largely expected because he was sentenced under South African
law to serve a short period of time in jail, or just one-sixth of the
sentence.
Pistorius is being held in South
Africa's capital at the Pretoria Central Prison, once the execution site
for opponents of South Africa's racist, white-minority government.
Steenkamp,
a 29-year-old law graduate and model, died almost instantly on
Valentine's Day in 2013 when Pistorius shot her through a locked toilet
door at his luxury Pretoria home.
Prosecutors had
pushed for a murder conviction, but the athlete maintained he fired in
the mistaken belief an intruder was hiding behind the door, a defence
that struck home in a country with one of the world's highest rates of
violent crimes.
The prosecutors won their bid to
appeal the culpable homicide conviction and will seek a murder
conviction when their case is heard in November.
The decision could leave Pistorius open to a prison sentence of at least 15 years if he is convicted of murder.
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