Panel OKs parole for RFK assassin Sirhan
SAN DIEGO — California’s parole board voted Friday to free Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin after two of RFK’s sons said they supported releasing him and prosecutors declined to argue he should be kept behind bars. But the governor ultimately will decide if Sirhan Sirhan leaves prison.
Douglas Kennedy was a toddler when his father was
gunned down in 1968. He told a twoperson board panel that he was moved to tears by Sirhan’s remorse and that the 77-year-old should be released if he’s not a threat to others.
“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.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has supported Sirhan’s release in the pas,t wrote in favor of paroling him. 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.”
“While nobody can speak definitively on behalf of my father, I firmly believe that based on his own consuming commitment to fairness and justice, that he would strongly encourage this board to release Mr. Sirhan because of Sirhan’s impressive record of rehabilitation,” he said in a letter submitted during the hearing to the board.
Sirhan, whose hair is now white, smiled, thanked the board and gave a thumbs-up after the decision to grant parole was announced. It was a major victory in his 16th attempt at parole. But it doesn’t assure his release.
The ruling will be reviewed over the next 120 days by the board’s staff. Then it will be sent to the governor, who will have 30 days to decide whether to grant it, reverse it or modify it. If Sirhan is freed, he must live in a transitional home for six months, enroll in an alcohol abuse program, and get therapy.
The New York senator and brother of President John F. Kennedy was the front-runner in the Democratic presidential race when he was gunned down June 6, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after delivering a victory speech in the pivotal California primary. Five others were wounded.
Sirhan, who insists he doesn’t remember the shooting and had been drinking alcohol just beforehand, was convicted of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to death after his conviction, but that sentence was commuted to life when the California Supreme Court briefly outlawed capital punishment in 1972.
At his last parole hearing in 2016, commissioners concluded after more than three hours of intense testimony that Sirhan didn’t show adequate remorse or understand the enormity of his crime.
On Friday, Sirhan again said he didn’t recall the killing, but he made multiple attempts to show that nonetheless he takes responsibility for the harm he caused.
“Sen. Kennedy was the hope of the world … and I harmed all of them, and it pains me to experience t
q!hat, the knowledge for such a horrible deed, if I did in fact do that,” said Sirhan, appearing on camera from a San Diego County prison at the virtual proceeding, wearing his blue prison uniform.
Parole Board Commissioner Robert Barton said Sirhan showed he was a different man from not only 1968 but 2016.
“We saw the improvement that you’ve made, and all of the other mitigating factors, and we did not find that your lack of taking complete responsibility” for the crime as proof of still being dangerous to society.
Barton said Sirhan had made a concerted effort to follow the board’s suggestions from 2016. That included enrolling in more than 20 programs focused on selfhelp, controlling his anger and other emotions, Barton said, noting that Sirhan did so even during the coronavirus pandemic.
Sirhan, a Christian Palestinian from Jordan, has acknowledged he was angry at Kennedy for his support of Israel. When asked about how he feels about the Middle East conflict today, Sirhan said he was too old to be involved and would detach himself from it.
“The same argument can be said or made that I can be a peacemaker and a contributor to a friendly nonviolent way of resolving the issue,” Sirhan said.