'A great fella': Ivan Milat's brothers maintain he is innocent - The Age

"(Ivan) said it would be a relief as his sentence would be over. He said it would be a relief," he told Nine News.

Speaking outside his Bargo home, he said the family planned to have Milat’s body cremated and there would not be a funeral.

Bill Milat, right, who is Ivan's next of kin, and his wife Carol.Credit:Sylvia Liber

"Mac didn’t want a funeral, he said he knew it would be a circus," he said.

"He requested to be cremated but the decision was up to me."

Richard Milat said his brother was "a great fella".

"I always thought he was a great fella,” he told Nine News on Monday at his Hill Top home, an hour south of Sydney.

Milat's victims, pictured clockwise from top-left: Deborah Everest of Australia, Anja Habschied of Germany, Simone Schmidl of Germany, James Gibson of Australia, Caroline Clarke of the UK, Gabor Neugebauer of Germany and Joanne Walters of the UK.

When asked what life had been like being a brother of Australia’s worst serial killer he said, "I never thought I was the brother of a serial killer so I was laughin'".

Richard Milat also said he did not believe his brother was guilty of the murders adding, "I don't think anything of the police force, I don't think you can trust them".

Ivan Milat, who had been in prison since 1994, was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in May.

The former road worker was sentenced in 1996 to seven consecutive life sentences for murdering seven backpackers whose bodies were found in makeshift graves in NSW's Belanglo State Forest in the 1990s.