Sirhan Sirhan is 78 years old. Convicted of the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968, he has been in prison for more than fifty years, despite the doubts surrounding his responsibility in this murder which profoundly upset American political life. His request for parole was rejected on Wednesday March 1 by a specialized California commission. Sirhan Sirhan thus undergoes a new rejection, after multiple requests.
In August 2021, another commission had given the green light to his release, but California Governor Gavin Newsom had opposed this decision in January of the following year. The elected Democrat at the time considered that Mr. Sirhan posed “an unreasonable threat to public safety”, citing several factors to explain his decision, “including Mr. Sirhan’s refusal to accept responsibility for his crime “.
Sirhan Sirhan was found guilty in April 1969 of the murder of Robert Kennedy, the younger brother of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy – also assassinated. Nicknamed “Bobby”, the New York senator was himself campaigning for the presidency of the United States when he was shot dead in a Los Angeles hotel in 1968.
First sentenced to death, Sirhan Sirhan saw his sentence commuted to life imprisonment several years later. Doubts about Sirhan’s guilt have remained since his trial. The hearing had revealed that Bobby Kennedy was shot at close range from behind, but Sirhan was standing in front of him, according to some witnesses. Later it emerged that 13 shots were fired, while Sirhan’s gun could only hold 8 bullets.
Suspicion over the verdict led Kennedy’s son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, to visit Mr. Sirhan in prison. “I went there because I was curious and disturbed by what I had seen in the evidence,” he told the Washington Post in 2018. “I was troubled by the idea that the wrong no one could have been convicted for killing my father. He and his younger brother, Douglas, supported Sirhan’s 2021 release attempt.
A Palestinian immigrant, Sirhan said he had drunk too much the night of the crime and wished “nothing had happened”. He had also assured that his earlier confessions during the trial were made by a lawyer who had badly advised him.
