Bobby Kennedy assassin on path to freedom after 53 years in jail

Sirhan Sirhan has his best prospect of release yet after prosecutors declined for the first time to oppose his freedom.

Sirhan Sirhan at a parole hearing in 2011

The man convicted of assassinating Bobby Kennedy in 1968 has his best prospect of release yet at a parole hearing on Friday after prosecutors declined for the first time to oppose his freedom.

Sirhan Sirhan, 77, has spent 53 years in jail in San Diego after his death sentence was reduced to life with the possibility of parole when California abolished capital punishment. He has lost 15 previous parole requests. George Gascon, the Los Angeles county district­ ­attorney, is remaining neutral and will not attend following a review of the fairness of long sentences and the potential cost savings of releasing low-risk elderly inmates.

Sirhan will be represented by a new lawyer who is emphasising his youth at the time of the killing and his good behaviour in prison, rather than claiming his innocence as his previous lawyer did.

Robert Kennedy Jr, 67, the third of Bobby’s 11 children, has said he believes that a second gunman was responsible for firing the shot that killed his father. The Kennedy family has not made submissions to the parole board.

“The role of a prosecutor and their access to information ends at sentencing,” Alex Bastian, special adviser to Mr Gascon, said.

“The parole board’s sole purpose is to objectively determine whether someone is suitable for release. If someone is the same person that committed an atrocious crime, that person will correctly not be found suitable for release.

Robert F Kennedy lies mortally wounded on pantry floor of Ambassador Hotel

However, if someone is no longer a threat to public safety after having served more than 50 years in prison, then the parole board may recommend release based on an objective determination. Our office policies take these principles into account and as such, our prosecutors stay out of the parole board hearing process.”

Bobby, the 42-year-old younger brother of John F. Kennedy, was killed on June 5, 1968, shortly after winning the Democrat presidential primary contest in California. President Kennedy had been assassinated 4½ years earlier.

Bobby was walking back through the pantry of the ­Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles to give a press conference when Sirhan stepped towards him and fired a .22-calibre handgun. One shot entered Kennedy’s brain and he died the next day. Sirhan, then 24, an unemployed apprentice jockey who had come to America from Israel as part of a Palestinian Christian family, was put on trial after a judge refused to accept a confession recorded by police and denied his request to change his plea to guilty. He was sentenced to the gas chamber, later commuted to life in prison.

The second-gunman theory arose because Bobby was shot four times from behind, which prosecutors explained by saying he turned his back on Sirhan. ­Evidence of bullet holes in the walls and doors suggested more than the eight-shot capacity of ­Sirhan’s gun.

Robert Jr told The Washington Post in 2018 that he believed ­Sirhan had not killed his father and had met Sirhan in prison to tell him so.

Paul Schrade, 96, who was wounded in the shooting, ­supports the second gunman theory and appeared at Sirhan’s previous hearing to call for his release.

Angela Berry, Sirhan’s lawyer, argued that “current dangerousness” was the relevant question for parole.

Munir Sirhan, Sirhan’s younger brother, told the Post: “We’re awaiting the deserved, proper ­decision from the parole board.”

Sirhan never obtained US ­citizenship, however, and could face deportation.

The Times