Bobby Kennedy's Alleged Assassin Getting Closer to Parole As Evidence of Conspiracy Begins to Leak Out

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Parole board votes to release Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin

 following his 16th parole hearing that went unopposed

28 Aug, 2021 01:28

Sirhan Sirhan, found guilty of fatally shooting U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, arrives for a parole hearing

Friday, Aug. 27, 2021 © AP/California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

A California parole board has voted to release Sirhan Sirhan – who killed US Senator Robert F. Kennedy – from prison after more than 50 years behind bars. The 77-year-old has said he shot the lawmaker over his support for Israel.

The two-person panel voted for Sirhan’s parole on Friday after he was denied during fifteen previous hearings for showing little remorse. The decision will now be subject to a review by the full board that will last 120 days. Sirhan’s ultimate release will hinge on approval by California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Friday’s hearing was the first for Sirhan when the prosecution attorney did not show up to contest his case. The absence of the prosecutors is in line with the Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon’s new policy, arguing that prosecutors should not interfere with the parole process.

Sirhan, who has since long claimed that he does not remember the assasination, reportedly said at the hearing that he was no longer “that young impulsive kid” who was found guilty of the younger Kennedy’s June 5, 1968 murder, vowing to “always look to safety and peace and non-violence.”

Sirhan was initially sentenced to death for the assassination of Kennedy, then a Democratic presidential hopeful, but was removed from death row following a 1972 decision by the California Supreme Court to outlaw capital punishment.

Kennedy was gunned down after midnight on June 5, 1968, shortly after he delivered a speech to his supporters at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, celebrating his victory in key California and South Dakota primaries. The Democratic favorite was reportedly heading to a press room when he decided to take a short-cut through the kitchen where he was shot. Five other people were injured in the incident.

Some US media at the time reported that Sirhan shouted “Let me explain! I did it for my country,” as he was being wrestled down by one of Kennedy’s bodyguards. In a 1980 interview, Sirhan claimed that he was drunk and felt triggered by the senator’s support for Israel during the 1967 Six Day War, the first anniversary of which was celebrated by Jewish Americans days prior to the assassination. In his first television interview in 1989, Sirhan, who was born to an Arab family in Jerusalem, said that he felt “betrayed” by Kennedy after the senator backed a proposal to send US fighter jets to Israel “to obviously do harm to the Palestinians.”

While Sirhan was the sole person found guilty in Kennedy’s murder, the assassination has given rise to conspiracy theories after new evidence in the case emerged in 2004. A rediscovered recording of the shooting was studied by audio engineer Van Praag, who argued that a total of 13 shots may be heard on the tape, while Sirhan’s revolver had fired only 8 bullets. While some other sound experts dismissed the findings, deeming the additional shots a figment of Praag’s imagination, others seized on the report, believing it to be evidence that another gunman was on the scene.

Kennedy’s son Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who spoke in favor of Sirhan’s parole before Friday’s hearing, has emerged as one of the most ardent supporters of the multiple gunmen theory. Paul Schrade, who was injured in the shooting but survived, later came out and claimed that while Sirhan shot him, another gunman shot Kennedy. 

Though Sirhan admitted at his trial in 1969 that he shot Kennedy, he claimed from the start that he had no memory of doing so. And midway through Sirhan’s trial, prosecutors provided his lawyers with an autopsy report that launched five decades of controversy: Kennedy was shot at point-blank range from behind, including a fatal shot behind his ear. But Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian immigrant, was standing in front of him. 

Several other witnesses also said he was not close enough to place the gun against Kennedy’s back, where famed Los Angeles coroner Thomas Noguchi found powder burns on the senator’s jacket and on his hair, indicating shots fired at close contact. These witnesses provided more proof for those who insist a second gunman was involved. 

Why didn’t they go after the second gunman? They knew about him right away. They didn’t want to know who it was. They wanted a quickie.” - Ron Schrade, Washington Post

Sirhan may have been subjected to coercive hypnosis, in a real-life version of “The Manchurian Candidate.” - Washington Post

At the previous parole hearing, Sirhan refused to confess to the murder, saying that “legally speaking I’m not guilty of anything.” A judge who rejected his appeal to set him free in 2015 ruled, however, that even if there was sufficient evidence for the jury to believe that there were more than one gunman at the scene, it would not have changed Sirhan’s sentence. “Even if the second shooter's bullet was the one that killed Senator Kennedy, petitioner would be liable as an aider and abettor.,” the judge said.

2nd Shooter, Wrong Person Jailed? Robert Kennedy’s Son Questions Assassination Probe

Robert F. Kennedy sits at his desk at the Justice Department in this 1968 file photograph. Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles 30 years ago on June 5, 1968, and died the following day. / Reuters

The wrong man may be in prison for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, according to none other than Kennedy’s son, who has called for a reinvestigation of the 1968 assassination.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he does not believe that Sirhan B. Sirhan, the Palestinian man convicted of killing his father in Los Angeles on June 6, 1968, was actually the person who carried out the crime.

Kennedy, who is now 64 years old and an environmental lawyer, told the newspaper that he believes a second shooter is responsible for the death of his father — a conclusion that he reached after spending months reviewing autopsy results and police reports, as well as talking to witnesses who were present when his father was shot.

Kennedy also told the Post that, as part of his investigation into the death, he went to visit the now 74-year old Sirhan at the California state prison where he is being held.

“I went there because I was curious and disturbed by what I had seen in the evidence,” Kennedy said. “I was disturbed that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father. My father was the chief law enforcement officer in this country. I think it would have disturbed him if somebody was put in jail for a crime they didn’t commit.”

Kennedy did not disclose the details of his discussion with Sirhan, but he eventually reached the conclusion that a second gunman had carried out the shooting and said he would like to see a reinvestigation into the death of his father, who served as US attorney general between 1961 and 1964 and as a senator for New York from 1965 until his death in 1968.

Kennedy was assassinated five years after his brother, President John F. Kennedy, was killed and two months after civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot in Memphis, Tennessee.

It’s not the first time someone has questioned the official stories of the Kennedy deaths. A number of independent researchers have also questioned the official US government line.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. attends Keep it Clean to benefit Waterkeeper Alliance on March 1, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. © John Sciulli / AFP

I personally knew one in 1979 who had investigated JFK's assassination and found no end of leads, but all the leads ended up leading to a dead person. After a couple years he abandoned the investigation and moved to Canada for fear of his life.

Journalist Stephen Lendman told Press TV last year he believes that Sirhan had nothing to do with the murder of Bobby Kennedy and that Lee Harvey Oswald had nothing to do with the assassination of President Kennedy — and that the CIA was responsible instead.

“Sirhan Sirhan is still alive, in prison. He had nothing to do with the killing of Bobby Kennedy. Lee Harvey Oswald had nothing to do with the killing of Jack Kennedy. The CIA killed Jack Kennedy,” Lendman claimed.

Lendman also disputes the findings from the official report into President Kennedy’s assassination.

“Kennedy was not shot twice from behind as the official report said. He was shot at least four times, from the front and from the back. And there was a bullet hole in the windshield of his limousine, and that was covered up, rather poorly, but it was covered up,” he said.

Lendman claims that Oswald was “set up” and was then assassinated by Jack Ruby, who was also later killed.

“The moral of the story is: dead men tell no tales,” Lendman said.

As my friend figured out!

During Sirhan’s trial in 1969, he admitted that he had killed Bobby Kennedy, but said he had no recollection of doing so. An autopsy report showed that Kennedy was shot at point-blank range from behind — yet Sirhan was standing in front of him.