Oscar Pistorius will not return to prison while awaiting sentencing for murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, a South African court has ruled.
The athlete will remain under house arrest at his uncle’s home after the prosecution declined to oppose bail at a hearing in the North Gauteng high court in Pretoria on Tuesday morning.
Deputy judge president Aubrey Ledwaba granted bail of R10,000 (£460) on condition that Pistorius remains under house arrest. “He has proved that he is not a flight risk,” the judge said.
Pistorius was present in court, dressed in a dark suit and tie, remaining calm and composed throughout, and occasionally sharing a joke with his lawyers. Before the hearing began, he had agreed to the strict conditions of his house arrest, which mostly confine him to Arnold Pistorius’s mansion in Pretoria.
Pistorius shot and killed Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day in 2013. He was found guilty of murder last month after the supreme court of appeal overturned a previous conviction for culpable homicide, the South African equivalent of manslaughter. The murder conviction comes with a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.
The bail payment is due by 11 December, a trivial sum in comparison to the R1m (£46,000) guarantee he lodged ahead of his original trial. This illustrates the toll that the legal proceedings has taken on the finances of Pistorius, once a multimillionaire.
“We also agreed to an amount of bail of R10,000 because in his affidavit he’s discussed he doesn’t have the means to pay a higher amount,” said the chief prosecutor, Gerrie Nel.
Pistorius is next scheduled to appear in court on 18 April to confirm the next steps in the legal process.
Absent from the court was June Steenkamp, Reeva’s mother, who has attended most other legal proceedings. Also missing was the large crowds of onlookers, both Pistorius fans and critics, which were a striking feature of the original trial.
The purpose of Tuesday’s court proceedings was to determine whether Pistorius should return to prison, pending a new sentencing hearing, or if he will remain under house arrest. Pistorius was released into correctional supervision earlier this year after having served one-sixth of his original sentence.
Pistorius’s legal team, led by Barry Roux, made clear its intention to challenge the appeal court’s decision in South Africa’s highest court, the constitutional court. This new appeal will be heard next year, before any sentencing hearing.
Roux said Pistorius did not pose a flight risk. “He is a well-known person, he’s got a disability. He’s abided by all the bail conditions, all the time, and he’s got a history where he’s shown that he commits himself to the structures of the criminal justice system.”
Nel said that the severity of Pistorius’s crime merited harsh bail conditions. “We have a convicted murderer applying for bail. The conditions therefore should be stricter,” he said.
The prosecution, however, was unsuccessful in its argument that Pistorius should not be allowed to leave the house without permission. Ledwaba said this requirement would create unnecessary work for the investigating officer required to grant permission, and instead granted Pistorius permission to leave the house between 7am and midday.
He will be electronically tagged to monitor his compliance with this condition and will no longer be required to perform community service, the judge ruled.