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The late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin was granted parole Friday after two of the slain political icon’s sons said they supported his release.
Douglas Kennedy, who was a toddler when his father was gunned down in 1968, said he was moved to tears by Sirhan Sirhan’s remorse during a parole hearing that prosecutors didn’t attend.
“I’m overwhelmed just by being able to view Mr. Sirhan face to face,” he said.
“I think 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 spoken in favor of Sirhan’s release in the past, also wrote in favor of paroling Sirhan.
Sirhan — who smiled as Kennedy spoke — told members of the California Parole Board that he’d learned to control his anger.
“I would never put myself in jeopardy again,” said Sirhan, 77.
“You have my pledge. I will always look to safety and peace and non-violence.”
Sirhan, 77, a Christian Palestinian from Jordan, has acknowledged he was angry at Kennedy for his support of Israel, and he broke down in tears when asked how he felt about the Middle East conflict today.
“The misery that those people are experiencing. It’s painful,” he said after composing himself.
Sirhan could be deported if he’s freed, and he tried to convince Parole Board Commissioner Robert Barton he wouldn’t become a lightning rod to spur more violence overseas.
“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.
Sirhan has lost 15 bids for freedom — with his last parole board in 2016 ruling that he had not shown remorse for the 1968 murder of the New York senator and brother of President John F. Kennedy.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón recently announced that for the first time his office would not object to the release of Sihan, who has served 53 years in prison.
“The role of a prosecutor and their access to information ends at sentencing,” said Alex Bastian, a special adviser to Gascón.
Sirhan’s hearing was presided over by a two-person panel that announced its decision shortly afterward.
The Parole Board staff now has 90 days to review the decision, after which it will be handed over to the governor for consideration.
The Parole Board had said earlier that it wouldn’t reveal if the Kennedy family or anyone else submitted statements opposing Sirhan’s release.
Late Friday, six of RFK’s nine surviving children — Joseph P. Kennedy II, Courtney Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Christopher G. Kennedy, Maxwell T. Kennedy and Rory Kennedy — issued a joint statement blasting the parole board’s “unexpected” decision and urging Gov. Gavin Newson to reverse the recommendation.
“Our father’s death impacted our family in ways that can never adequately be articulated and today’s decision by a two-member parole board has inflicted enormous additional pain,” the siblings said, without mentioning Douglas Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s support for Sirhan’s release.
“We are in disbelief that this man would be recommended for release,” the statement said. “It is a recommendation we intend to challenge every step of the way, and we hope that those who also hold the memory of our father in their hearts will stand with us.”
Gascón, a former cop, said he reached the difficult decision to leave the decision to the parole board even though he admired Kennedy and knows Sirhan is “the kind of individual that we all like to hate.”
“I can get very emotionally wrapped around my personal feelings (about) someone that killed someone that I thought could have been an incredible president for this country,” Gascón said. “But that has no place in this process. Just like it doesn’t for the person nobody knows about.”
RFK was a Democratic presidential candidate when he was gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after delivering a victory speech in the pivotal California primary.
Sirhan 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 Sirhan’s last parole hearing in 2016, commissioners concluded after more than three hours of intense testimony that he did not show adequate remorse or understand the enormity of his crime.
Sirhan was 24 at the time of the assassination, and has repeatedly claimed to have no memory of the killing.
However, he has recalled events before the crime in detail — going to a shooting range that day, visiting the hotel in search of a party, and returning after realizing he was too drunk to drive.
He recalled drinking a coffee just before the assassination — claiming the next thing he remembered was being choked and unable to breathe as he was taken into custody. At his 2016 hearing, he said he felt remorse for any crime victim but couldn’t take responsibility for the shooting.
Sirhan’s new defense attorney, Angela Berry, said she plans to argue that the decision should be based on who Sirhan is today and not then. He has an exemplary prison record that shows he is not a danger, she said.
“We can’t change the past, but he was not sentenced to life without the possibility of parole,” Berry told the AP.
“To justify denying it based on the gravity of the crime and the fact that it disenfranchised millions of Americans is ignoring the rehabilitation that has occurred and that rehabilitation is a more relevant indicator of whether or not a person is still a risk to society.”
Berry said it was hard to predict what impact the prosecution’s absence would have on the outcome after Sirhan’s release has already been knocked down 15 times.
“I like to think it’ll make a difference. But I think everybody is not impervious to the fact that this is political,” she said.
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