Pistorius hopes for parole as panel review

His case is expected to before the Supreme Court of Appeal at a date to be set in November, where state prosecutors will seek a retrial.

According to Roux, the reliability and objectivity of another trial would be contaminated by the overwhelming public scrutiny that followed the first hearing.

He was found guilty of culpable homicide – a charge equivalent to manslaughter – after saying during the trial that he shot her through a locked bathroom door because he mistook her for an intruder.

Furthermore, Pistorius’ lawyers added: “The respondent’s financial ability [for a second murder trial] is non-existent”.

Pistorius’ defense raised the prospect of a re-trial, but only as a last resort, they said. Appeals could be granted based on questions of law, not on the interpretation of the facts of the matter.

Roux argues the State was trying to attack Masipa’s finding that Pistorius did not intend to kill Ms Steenkamp, and that it was not allowed to do this.

Prosecutors had said Pistorius shot Steenkamp intentionally after a fight.

Pistorius, once an Olympic poster boy, has been stripped of his lucrative sponsorship contracts and has not raced professionally since the shooting.

With reports of being “frail” and “broken” from his friends, the South African athlete had hoped to be released from jail to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest in August, but he was denied by Justice Minister Michael Masutha at the last minute, the Daily Mail reported.

He was given an additional three-year sentence, suspended for five years, for firing a gun at a restaurant.

Life seemed to be going on as usual on Friday in the quiet upmarket Pretoria suburb where Oscar Pistorius’s uncle lives, even though an announcement by the Parole Review Board was expected on the former Paralympian’s possible release under correctional supervision.

The runner was jailed a year ago for shooting dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his home in South Africa on Valentine’s Day 2013.