Children’s anger as Bobby Kennedy’s killer wins parole after years in jail
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The man who shot dead US Senator Robert F Kennedy has been granted parole.
The decision by a California Parole Board panel came after two of Kennedy’s sons went against several of their siblings’ wishes and supported
releasing Sirhan Sirhan, now 77, and prosecutors declined to argue he should be kept behind bars.
Six of Mr Kennedy’s nine surviving children said they were shocked by the vote.
They urged Governor Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election in California, to reverse the board’s decision. “He took our father from our family and he took him from America,” the six siblings wrote in a statement late on Friday.
“We are in disbelief that this man would be recommended for release.”
One of the two who supported Sirhan’s application, Douglas Kennedy, told the board he was moved to tears by his remorse while the other, Robert F Kennedy Jr, submitted a letter calling for Sirhan to be freed.
Kennedy was a US senator from New York and the brother of US president John F Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963.
He was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination when he was gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after delivering a victory speech in the pivotal California primary in June 1968.
Sirhan was initially sentenced to death but that was commuted to life when the California supreme court briefly outlawed capital punishment in 1972.
But the decision does not assure Sirhan’s release, with the state’s governor ultimately making the decision. For 15 years, Sirhan, who claims to have no memory of the shooting as he was drunk at the time,
was denied parole by a board that maintained he did not show adequate remorse or understanding over the enormity of his crime.
On Friday, Sirhan told the two person panel: “Over half a century has passed. That young impulsive kid I was does not exist any more.”
The board found that Sirhan no longer posed a threat to society.
Douglas Kennedy was a toddler when his father was gunned down in 1968. He told the panel that he was moved to tears by Sirhan’s remorse.
“I’m overwhelmed just by being able to view Mr Sirhan face-to-face,” he said. “I’ve lived my life both in fear of him and his name in one way or another. And I am grateful today to see him as a human being worthy of compassion and love.”
Environmental lawyer Robert F Kennedy Jr wrote in favour of paroling Sirhan. He said in the letter that he met him in prison and was moved by Sirhan, “who wept, clinching my hands, and asked for forgiveness”.
Sirhan, a Palestinian, claimed to have no memory of the shooting, but it has been suggested he felt betrayed by Kennedy’s support for Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, which began a year to the day before the attack.