Oscar Pistorius' "freedom" may be short-lived.
The double-amputee Olympic sprinter will learn Thursday morning (South African time) whether he must return to prison over the shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, according to Reuters.
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The 29-year-old Pistorius has been under house arrest since mid-October after serving 12 months of a five-year prison sentence on a culpable homicide charge -- the equivalent of manslaughter in the United States.
South African law allows prisoners to be released to house arrest after serving one-sixth of their sentence. The "Blade Runner" was eligible for parole in August, but protest of Pistorius' case led to an extra two months at Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria, South Africa, before he was allowed to leave the facility.
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The prosecution in Pistorius' case is appealing the culpable homicide verdict to the South African Supreme Court of Appeals and is seeking a murder charge be invoked instead.
That would carry a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison for Pistorius. It has not been determined publicly whether he would be eligible for house arrest in 2 ½ years, which would be one-sixth of that sentence, and would be credited for the 12 months already served.
Pistorius shot Steenkamp four times through the upstairs bathroom in his Pretoria home in the early morning hours of Valentine's Day, 2013. He maintains that he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder, even though they had gone to sleep in the same bed the previous night.
"Prosecutors said Pistorius should be convicted of murder and sent back to jail because he knew the person behind the door could be killed when he fired," the Mirror reported.
That was the basis of his original sentence. In his trial, judge Thokozile Masipa ruled that the prosecution failed to prove that Pistorius was to be judged under "dolus eventualis," which places responsibility on an individual for "the foreseeable consequences" of his actions, Reuters added.
Should the Court of Appeals overturn the culpable homicide charge for murder, legal experts believe that sentences will go back to Masipa.
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