Oscar Pistorius’ brother and sister said they have no doubts over whether their brother is telling the truth about the fatal shooting of Reeva Steenkamp, telling NBC News on the eve of the athlete's sentencing that they'll stand by him no matter what.
Pistorius is expected to learn hear Tuesday whether he will go to prison for culpable homicide after shooting 29-year-old Reeva through a toilet door in his Pretoria apartment. He maintains he mistook his girlfriend for an intruder.
In her first interview since the killing, Aimee Pistorius described the double-amputee Olympian as a “kind person, generous, sometimes to a fault,” with “a good heart.”
“I do not doubt my brother at all. I have the privileged position of knowing my brother - his strengths, his faults as you do when you're as close as we are," she told NBC News. "People who think maliciously are so far from the truth.”
Oscar's brother, Carl, said he too has no reservations about the double-amputee runner's story.
“There's not an inkling of reservation as to what I believe Oscar says.”
The siblings said they would stand by Pistorius whatever sentence is handed down by the judge.
“We cannot speculate ahead of final sentencing but what I do know for certain, regardless of the outcome, the three of us will stand together and continue to stand together,” Carl said.
Aimee added: “We take things as they come. We don't know what the outcome's going to be so we'll take it as it comes and deal with it together.”
She added that it had been “particularly difficult” to see Oscar deal with the aftermath of the shooting “and to try and be there and support someone through the guilt, grief - the overwhelmingness that comes with all of that.”
"When I first heard what had happened obviously my initial reaction was just shock and devastation - and extreme heartache. My first thoughts were that knowing my brother, who he is, he is the kind of person he is, as well as his fears, he must have thought it was an intruder before I knew the facts."