Sirhan Sirhan, who is 78 years old, was told by California commissioners that he must do more study to comprehend what causes someone to become a political assassin, according to his attorney.
Two years after a parole board recommended his release, the assassin of 1968 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy has been denied freedom.
A parole board panel concurred with Sirhan’s attorneys in 2021 that he no longer constituted a threat to the public.
Last year, though, the governor of California intervened and overruled the panel. This was Sirhan’s sixteenth parole denial.
His attorney, Angela Berry, contended that Governor Gavin Newsom and Kennedy relatives who oppose Sirhan’s release improperly impacted the board’s decision.
According to the Associated Press, Ms. Berry stated following Wednesday’s hearing at a state jail in San Diego County, “I do feel the board caved to the political whims of the governor.”
She has filed a 53-page habeas corpus, which alleges unlawful imprisonment, and asked a judge to determine that the governor’s intervention violates state law.
On his final parole hearing in 2021, Sirhan reportedly told commissioners:
“More than fifty years have passed. The young, reckless child I once was no longer exists.”
His attorney stated that he was not as communicative during his most recent hearing.
The Palestinian immigrant earlier said he shot JFK because he was upset by the president’s backing for Israel, but Sirhan has denied having any memory of the murder.
On June 5, 1968, he shot and killed 42-year-old John F. Kennedy in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles and was convicted of first-degree murder.
In 1963, his older brother, President John F. Kennedy, was murdered in Dallas.
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