Imprisoned ex-athlete: Oscar Pistorius meets the parents of his killed girlfriend

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Oscar Pistorius (before a court hearing in June 2016)

Photo: Siphiwe Sibeko / REUTERS

The appointment is part of a rehabilitation measure intended to enable talks between perpetrators and victims: Oscar Pistorius, who shot his girlfriend on Valentine's Day 2013 in his house in the South African city of Pretoria, has now met her father.

"I can confirm that Barry Steenkamp and Oscar Pistorius took part in a victim-perpetrator dialogue on June 22, 2022," said a lawyer for the Steenkamp family - and asked for consideration not to comment further on the exact content of the meeting be able.

The South African Correctional Service stressed, however, that the meeting does not automatically mean that the former sports star will be released on parole: the aim of these dialogues is for perpetrators to "recognize the damage they have caused their victims and society".

The below-knee amputee athlete Pistorius shot his girlfriend, the model Reeva Steenkamp, ​​on February 14, 2013 through the closed bathroom door.

In court, he always protested that he thought Steenkamp was a burglar and acted in a panic.

Oscar Pistorius has been in prison for the manslaughter of his girlfriend since 2015.

In the trial, the judge said that the prosecutor's office could not prove beyond a doubt that the accused had acted intentionally: "The facts are not sufficient to support this thesis." At the same time, she accused Pistorius of firing the shots in a "conscious decision « to have given up.

The 35-year-old is serving his sentence in Atteridgeville prison near Pretoria. In November last year he was briefly transferred to a prison near the port city of Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) - the region where Steenkamp's parents live.

Pistorius has already served half of his 13-year sentence.

nil/AFP/Reuters