Calif. gov mulls parole for RFK assassin Sirhan Sirhan

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s governor must soon decide whether to free one of America’s most notorious assassins, a decision he has said evokes one of the darkest periods in the nation’s history.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has until sometime next month to allow or block the parole recommendation for Robert F. Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan.

The recommendation by a two-person panel of parole commissioners in August split the iconic Kennedy family more than a half-century after the 1968 slaying of the U.S. senator from New York moments after he claimed victory in California’s pivotal Democratic presidential primary.

More than that, it tore open decades-old wounds lingering from the murders of RFK and his brother, President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963.

Fifteen times, parole panels rejected freeing Sirhan, now 77, before deciding that he is no longer a danger to public safety.

New laws since his last previous parole hearing in 2016 meant the panel had to consider that Sirhan committed the offense at a young age, when he was 24; is now an elderly prisoner; and that the Christian Palestinian who immigrated from Jordan had suffered childhood trauma from the conflict in the Middle East.

Also, for the first time, Los Angeles County prosecutors weren’t at the parole hearing to object, under District Attorney George Gascon’s policy that prosecutors should not be involved in deciding whether prisoners are ready for release.

And two of RFK’s sons supported releasing him, including Douglas Kennedy, who told the parole panel that Sirhan was “worthy of compassion and love.” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote to the panel urging that Sirhan be freed, citing his ”impressive record of rehabilitation.”

But six of Kennedy’s nine surviving children urged Newsom to block the release of a man who “took our father from our family and he took him from America.” The statement was signed by Joseph P. Kennedy II, Courtney Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Christopher G. Kennedy, Maxwell T. Kennedy, and Rory Kennedy.

Ethel Kennedy, RFK’s wife, said Sirhan “should not have the opportunity to terrorize again.”