“He had to be detained Saturday afternoon at the hospital after falling off his bed”, Pretoria prison services spokesman Singabakho Nxumalo told Agence France-Presse (AFP), adding, “He’s back in our care now”.
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Manelisi Wolela, a spokesman for the prison service, said the athlete had “minor injuries on his wrists”.
Pistorius is serving a six-year sentence, which prosecutors said last month was too lenient.
During the trial, Judge Masipa had told the court Pistorius suffered “severe mental health problems” since Steenkamp’s murder.
According to media reports yesterday, razor blades were found in Pistorius’s cell and there were claims that he was bleeding, that his wrists were bandaged by prison staff, and an ambulance had been called.
South Africa and the rest of the world were left stunned when Ms Steenkamp was shot and killed by Pistorius at his home in Pretoria.
South Africa’s prisons department said Pistorius denied that he had attempted suicide.
Pistorius has now been returned to prison after receiving treatment. I know that there are reports saying that he tried to injure himself; these are completely untrue and sensational. He claimed that he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet that morning because he mistook her for a burglar. The double-amputee athlete was sentenced on July 6.
A Kalafong hospital representative at the casualty department who asked not to be named said she was working on Saturday throughout the day and remembers nothing out of the ordinary.
The 29-year-old athlete was initially given a five-year term for manslaughter, but was found guilty of murder after prosecutors appealed last December.
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A four-times Paralympic victor, he also won a court battle to become the first double-amputee athlete to compete with able-bodied runners at the Olympic games in London in 2012.
