Pretoria, Nov 24 (IANS): Olympic and Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius has been granted parole and will be released from prison on Jan. 5. Pistorius was in jail since 2014 for killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.

Also Known as “Blade Runner” for his carbon-fiber prosthetic legs, Pistorius won multiple gold medals at the Paralympics and then went on to compete at the London 2012 Olympics. He fatally shot Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day in 2013. Reeva, who was 29 when she was murdered, was a law graduate and successful model.

Pistorius was initially jailed for five years in 2014 for culpable homicide by a high court, but the Supreme Court of Appeal in late 2015 found him guilty of murder after an appeal by prosecutors.

He was sent to jail for six years in 2016 after a high court sentence. In 2017, the Supreme Court doubled his murder sentence to 13 years and five months.]

Earlier in March, The Guardian reported that Since Pistorius had not served the necessary amount of time in jail needed to qualify for parole, his request for release was denied.

However, after Pistorius's sentence was backdated to July 2016 rather than November 2017, a constitutional court decided in October that he had served half of his term by March 21 of this year, making him eligible for parole.