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Johannesburg – The sister of convicted murderer Oscar Pistorius, Aimee, has spoken out on the sentencing of her sibling in an interview with eNCA.
She had only praise for her brother's victim, Reeva Steenkamp, saying she was an exceptional person who people were drawn to. She described Steenkamp as sincere and beautiful on the inside and out.
Pistorius said she was also pleased that Judge Thokozile Masipa highlighted that her brother did not intentionally shoot Steenkamp - despite the fact that the Supreme Court of Appeal found that he should be convicted of murder and not culpable homicide.
Aimee Pistorius added that the assumption that his intent was to kill was "unfortunate".
“It's a terrible accident where Oscar had no intention of shooting Reeva... A lot of hurt has been created and on top of that, there is already in this tragedy, that there's this lie being perpetuated that there was violence that there was an argument and that there was intention to shoot Reeva, which is not true and there hasn't been anything to support that,” she said in the interview.
High Court Judge Thokozile Masipa emphasised that Pistorius had acted out of fear when she sentenced him to six years in jail last week. This was the second time she sentenced him; after he was initially only convicted of culpable homicide.
The SCA overturned that conviction in December, almost three years after he shot dead his girlfriend, saying he mistook her for an intruder. He fired four shots into the door of a toilet cubicle in his Pretoria home on Valentine's Day in 2013.
He served one-sixth of his five-year sentence for culpable homicide in prison and was released in October to serve the remainder under correctional supervision.
But Pistorius went to prison for a second time on Wendesday, when Masipa sentenced him to six years in jail, much lower than the maximum sentence of 15 years.
