Bobby Kennedy's assassin granted parole in California

John F. Kennedy was killed in 1963, but the circumstances surrounding his death continue to generate controversy almost six decades later

Sirhan Sirhan, pictured in this October 2009 handout image from the California Department of Corrections, had tried on 15 previous occasions to be released from his life sentence

The man convicted of shooting dead Robert F. Kennedy in a 1968 assassination that rocked the United States was granted parole Friday.

Sirhan Sirhan, now 77, has been behind bars for five decades -- despite doubts that he fired the shots that likely changed the course of US politics.

His murder came just months after the killing of Black civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, and as a divided America was deep in an unpopular war in Vietnam.

His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment several years later. 

- 'Wrong person' -

On a walkabout in the kitchen where he met staff, he was shot, as were several other people in his entourage, among them Paul Schrade, who took a bullet to the head.

"It is a good decision," Schrade told AFP on Friday.

The vote on Friday by a two-person panel of the California parole board does not mean that Sirhan will automatically be released. 

During Friday's hearing, Kennedy's youngest son, Douglas, spoke in favor of Sirhan's release, media reports said, adding that Robert F. Kennedy Jr had sent a letter of support to the parole board.

"I went there because I was curious and disturbed by what I had seen in the evidence," he told the paper.

"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."

Witnesses said Sirhan was standing in front of him.

The weapon Sirhan was found to have fired could hold only eight bullets.

- Dynasty -

The ongoing controversy has echoes of the 1963 killing of John F. Kennedy, in which some historians insist more than one gunman was involved.

Their wealth and political power has captivated generations of Americans -- as have the scandals in which they have become embroiled.

Most infamously, Senator Ted Kennedy -- Bobby and John's brother -- was behind the wheel in 1969 when his car crashed into a pond, trapping 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne inside.

The so-called 'Chappaquiddick Incident' left a stain on the family legacy.

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