Pistorius Is Not Rehabilitated Yet-Murdered Girlfriend's Mother

Mother of late Reeva Steenkamp, murdered by Oscar Pistorius about a decade ago, has said that the country’s former Paralympic champion is yet to be rehabilitated.

June Steenkamp made the statement on Friday while addressing a South African Parole Board sitting to review the former champion's plea for an early release from prison. 

According to her, non is qualified for parole unless the affected individual engages honestly, being conscious of the full truth of both his his crime and attendant consequences, all of which seem to be lacking in the case with Pistorius. 

“Rehabilitation requires someone to engage honestly, with the full truth of his crime and the consequences thereof. Nobody can claim to have remorse if they’re not able to engage fully with the truth,” she told the panel. 

Thirty-seven year-old Pistorius is appearing before a parole board at the Department of Correctional Centre for the second time within eight months hoping that the board would look through his profile and possibly consider a parole, even as the board says it is not certain of the outcome. 

“We are not sure whether the inmate, if successful, is going home today or there will be other terms like he has to go through other programmes,” correctional services spokesperson, Singabakho Nxumalo, told newsmen. 

The Paralympic champion lost his first bid in March following the discovery by the board that he was yet to complete the minimum detention period required for parole.

But the country's Constitutional Court ruled in October that the outcome was a mistake, paving the way for the ongoing review.

Pistorius met with the parents of his murdered girlfriend last year as part of the conditions for the review. In March however, her parents, still opposed to an early release, insisted that they do not believe the former sprinter told the truth about what happened and had not shown remorse.

“I don’t believe his story,” Steenkamp’s mother said then.