The brother and sister of Oscar Pistorius have said they will "continue to stand together" with the athlete regardless of the outcome of his sentencing today (Tuesday).
Carl and Aimee Pistorius, who have been in court throughout the long-running trial, said the Oscar they knew was entirely different from the one described by prosecutors who sought to have him convicted of murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.
They said that they, too, had struggled to come to terms with the model's death, and would support their brother through its aftermath.
"It's been a particularly difficult time to see a sibling go through the emotions that he had, and to try and be there and support someone through the guilt, grief - the overwhelmingness that comes with all of that," Aimee Pistorius said in an interview with ITV News.
She said she never doubted her brother's version of events. Pistorius has said he heard a noise in the early hours of St Valentine's Day last year and fired four shots at the locked lavatory door of his Pretoria home. He claimed that he thought a burglar was inside, but instead killed 29-year-old Steenkamp. He was convicted of manslaughter.
"When I first heard what had happened obviously my initial reaction was just shock and devastation - and extreme heartache," Miss Pistorius said. "My first thoughts were that knowing my brother, the kind of person he is as well as his fears, he must have thought it was an intruder."
She said it was inevitable that some would think the worst of her brother's actions that night. "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 said.
"Knowing those things, I know that people who think maliciously are so far from the truth."
Miss Pistorius said Oscar and Reeva were "such a good match".
"From what I saw, I saw two people who really just adored each other and had a fantastic friendship," she said. "Reeva was an exceptional girl with charisma and in the small time I knew her she really crept into our lives and into our family's hearts."
The interview came as it was claimed that the South African authorities have already prepared a jail cell for the athlete. Eyewitness News reported that Pistorius will be sent to the most securely guarded section of Pretoria Central Prison.