Pretoria -
When Oscar Pistorius woke up on Wednesday morning as a member of the prison population, he was due to start his 21-day health assessment to establish his needs.
On Tuesday night, the Paralympian spent his first night in Kgosi Mampuru II prison’s hospital section.
“He is a little bit tired and tense but the chaplain went to talk to him,” area commissioner Zebilon Monama said on Tuesday night.
“He is deurmekaar (confused), as they say in Afrikaans. After he saw the chaplain, our psychologist went to see him, just to try to talk to him.”
Monama said Pistorius had been placed in a single cell in the hospital wing of the Pretoria prison.
“After completing the medical, the reception person will give him prison clothing. Then you take your private clothes and put it in a bag,” Monama said.
Gauteng Correctional Services spokesman Ofentse Morwane said that for the first six hours of his stay in jail, Pistorius had to go through an admission process before being sent to the hospital section.
The man, known around the world as “Blade Runner” and often photographed in the green running kit of South Africa, had to change out of the suit he wore to sentencing and into the prison’s uniform before a health-risk assessment was conducted.
Pistorius is one of nine disabled offenders incarcerated at the facility.
Five of the offenders are in wheelchairs, two are blind and Pistorius is the second offender with prosthetic legs.
Morwane said the prison had an offender population of 7 217, of which 4 718 were sentenced.
Pistorius was transported to the prison under heavy police guard after Judge Thokozile Masipa sentenced him to five years in jail for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Passing sentence, the judge said it would be a sad day for this country if an impression were to be created that there was one law for the poor and disadvantaged and another for the rich and famous.
Sentencing Pistorius to five years’ imprisonment in terms of an act which made provision for an effective 10-month stint in jail before he was released on correctional supervision, the judge said she was satisfied that Correctional Services was equipped to deal with inmates who had special needs.
The judge said it was the right of any inmate to turn to court if he felt he was treated unfairly in jail and there was no reason to believe Pistorius would be treated differently.
Correctional Services had assured the court there was a team of medical experts available in jail to attend to the inmates, she said. They could also consult their own medical practitioners if they wanted to.
“The department deals with a number of inmates with a variety of disabilities and vulnerabilities, and it seems the department is coping reasonably well. I have no reason to believe that the accused will present the department with an insurmountable challenge.”
The judge added she had listened with some unease as the one witness after the other placed evidence before court which she thought over- emphasised Pistorius’s vulnerability. “Yes, he is vulnerable, but he also has excellent coping skills. Thanks to his mother, he rarely saw himself as disabled. He excelled as an athlete, was respected worldwide against all odds and even competed against able-bodied athletes. For some reason, this picture remains obscured in the background.”
There was no doubt that Pistorius’s contribution to society had been enormous, as he had given his time and money to varies charities, the judge said. He had also helped change the world’s perception of disabled people.
But, the judge said, it must be remembered that he was grossly negligent in shooting Reeva Steenkamp. On his version, he knew there was someone behind the toilet door but fired not one, but four, shots, using a lethal weapon.
There was no room for the person in the bathroom to escape the bullets, and this was an aggravating factor, the judge said.
It was also significant that Pistorius had been trained in the use of firearms, which in the judge’s view was an aggravating factor.
In mitigation, the judge found that Pistorius seemed remorseful, had attempted to apologise in private to Steenkamp’s parents and, after shooting her, tried to do everything possible to save her life.
The judge said that as a country we had moved away from the Dark Ages, and it was no longer a question of “an eye for an eye”.
The public could not always get the sentence which they wanted, as what appeared to be justice to them was not necessarily so.
Professor Annette van der Merwe, a criminal law expert at the University of Pretoria, hailed the punishment. “I think it is a very well-balanced judgment. It was emphasised that the final discretion lies with the court and that sentencing is not a scientific process.”
Mike Batley, a restorative justice expert, agrees. “This sentence reflects the careful balancing act required of a diligent sentencing officer. The judge has taken the calls by the State for direct imprisonment into account, but also the call by the defence for Pistorius to make a contribution to society outside jail.”
While the debate rages over whether the sentence was just, Pistorius’s admission to the hospital section will be a great comfort for his family and the defence, who did not want him to serve his sentence with the general prison population. – Additional reporting by Sapa
Pretoria News