Pistorius spends time with family on first day of bail

Pistorius was freed on a record one million rand ($112,770) bail on Friday after eight days in cells and an emotionally charged four day bail hearing.

"I would like Oscar to just compose himself and to have a normal day," his uncle Arnold Pistorius told the local Eyewitness News.

He will return to court later this year when a date will be set for trial for having shot dead his model girlfriend and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day.

When contacted by AFP, his father Henke Pistorius refused to say how his son had slept. He spent the night at his uncle's house in Pretoria.

But a source close to the family told AFP late Friday that "the family just want time together. They haven't thought about anything except being together."

Pistorius claims he killed his lover by mistake thinking she was a burglar.

The grieving parents of his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, however, did not appear convinced.

"It doesn't matter how rich he is and how good his legal team is. He needs to live with himself if he lets his legal team lie for him," his father Barry told the Afrikaans language daily Beeld.

Pistorius has assembled some of the best legal brains in South African to defend his case.

"He'll have to live with his conscience. But if he's telling the truth, I may forgive him one day," said Steenkamp's father.

But "if it didn't happen as he described it, he should suffer. And he will suffer ... only he knows."

Pistorius's family has sent flowers and card to the Steenkamp family, but "what does that mean? Nothing," said June, Reeva's mother.

In addition to the bail cash he posted Friday afternoon, which experts say is among one of the highest ever set in South Africa, Pistorius had to surrender his passport and his firearms. He will have to report twice weekly to Pretoria's Brooklyn police between 7:00 am and 1:00 pm on Monday's and Friday's. He was also ordered not to take alcohol or drugs.

Pistorius may also on Saturday hold talks with his trainer to get back on the track, despite being banned under the terms of his bail from competing outside South Africa.

"He is a professional athlete. He needs to keep his body in shape," said the family source.

His arrest on February 14 shocked the world and gripped South Africa, where he became a national hero after becoming the first double amputee to compete in the Olympics last year.

The state charged him with the premeditated Valentine's Day killing of 29-year-old Steenkamp.

If found guilty he faces a possible life sentence.

Just hours before the magistrate's decided to release Pistorius on bail, arguing he was not a flight a risk and did not pose a danger to the public, defence lawyer Barry Roux appeared to concede that the star sprinter could be convicted on a lesser charge of homicide.