Former track star Oscar Pistorius, convicted of culpable homicide last year in the shooting death of his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, was released on house arrest Monday, prison officials confirmed to the BBC. That’s one day ahead of schedule, and less than one year after he was first jailed.

The South African Pistorius, known as an Olympic and Paralympic athlete who ran on blade-shaped prosthetic legs, is expected to serve the rest of his five-year sentence at his uncle’s Pretoria home. The New York Daily News describes the house as a “plush mansion in the suburbs.”

BBC reporters say Pistorius’s parole terms bar him from owning guns and require him to attend regular therapy sessions. He will also likely be required to do community service.

For the prosecution, that’s not enough. An appeal to the Supreme Court, scheduled for a Nov. 3 hearing, argues Pistorius should have been convicted of murder, rather than South Africa’s manslaughter equivalent. A murder conviction would put him in prison for up to 15 years.

Steenkamp’s surviving family members will consider visiting Pistorius when the time is right, but they’re on record as saying he’s “getting off lightly,” and his sentence was “not enough for taking a life.”

[Photo: Getty Images]