Johannesburg - Oscar Pistorius denies deliberately killing Reeva Steenkamp and says he believes the late model would want him to “help the less fortunate” rather than “waste my life” in prison, according to advance excerpts from his first television interview since the February 2013 killing.
Daily newspaper The Guardian on Thursday published excerpts from the interview Pistorius gave British broadcaster ITV, which is due to be aired late on Friday.
The 29-year-old double-amputee Olympic sprinter admitted he deserved a long prison sentence for killing Steenkamp, whom he shot dead through a toilet door in his Pretoria home.
Judge Thokozile Masipa initially rejected prosecution arguments that he had murdered Steenkamp after a quarrel, instead accepting Pistorius's account that he mistook her for a burglar. That led to an initial sentence of five years on culpable homicide charges.
But an appeals court turned the verdict into murder. Masipa is now due to hand out a new sentence on July 6.
Pistorius said in the interview that he “couldn't disagree” with those who said he should be punished.
“At times I don't feel like I should have the right to live for taking someone else's life. What's difficult is dealing with the charge of murder,” he said.
But the athlete also said he did not want to “waste my life” behind bars. “If I was afforded the opportunity of redemption, I would like to help the less fortunate, like I had in my past,” he said.
“I would like to believe that if Reeva could look down upon me that she would want me to live that life,” he added.
Pistorius insisted the shooting was not premeditated, describing how he heard noise from the bathroom at night and fired in panic. Only then did he look for Steenkamp, finally breaking the locked bathroom door and discovering to his horror that he had killed her.
Pistorius told ITV he “saw the pain” he had caused and said that most of his mutual friends with Steenkamp “don't speak to me any more”.
A murder verdict carries a minimum sentence of 15 years for a first-time offender in South Africa. However, Pistorius could come away with less, because he has already served one year. Masipa could also find mitigating circumstances in his case, legal experts said.
DPA