Sirhan Sirhan | |
|---|---|
سرحان سرحان | |
 Mug shot of Sirhan in 2021 | |
| Born | Sirhan Bishara Sirhan (1944-03-19)March 19, 1944 (age 81) Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine |
| Citizenship | Palestinian (1944–48) Jordanian (1949–present) |
| Known for | Assassinating Robert F. Kennedy |
| Height | 165 cm (5 ft 5 in) |
| Criminal status | Incarcerated atRichard J. Donovan Correctional Facility (as of 2025) |
| Motive | Anti-Zionism |
| Convictions |
|
| Criminal penalty | Death by gas chamber (1969);commuted tolife imprisonment with the possibility ofparole(1972) |
| Details | |
| Date | June 5, 1968 12:15 a.m. |
| Locations | Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Killed | 1 (Robert F. Kennedy) |
| Injured | 5 |
Sirhan Bishara Sirhan (/sɪərˈhɑːn/;[2]Arabic:سرحان بشارة سرحانSirḥān Bišāra Sirḥān; born March 19, 1944) is a Jordanian man whoassassinated SenatorRobert F. Kennedy, the younger brother of American presidentJohn F. Kennedy and a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the1968 United States presidential election, on June 5, 1968. Kennedy died the next day at theGood Samaritan Hospital of Los Angeles. On April 17, 1969, Sirhan was convicted of first-degree murder, among other charges, and subsequently sentenced to death bygas chamber. In 1972, this was commuted to a life sentence in the aftermath ofPeople v. Anderson. The circumstances surrounding the attack, which took place five years afterPresident Kennedy's assassination, have led tonumerous conspiracy theories.
In 1989, Sirhan told British journalistDavid Frost: "My only connection with Robert Kennedy was his sole support of Israel and his deliberate attempt to send those 50 fighter jets to Israel to obviously do harm to the Palestinians."[3] Some scholars believe that the assassination was the first major incident of political violence in theUnited States stemming from theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict (Sirhan carried out the attack on the first anniversary of the1967 Arab–Israeli War), though it occurred at a time when the American public was overwhelmingly focused on theVietnam War.[4]
Sirhan is incarcerated atRichard J. Donovan Correctional Facility nearSan Diego. On August 27, 2021, after 15 years of being denied parole by the local state board, he was granted parole by a two-person panel.[5][6] Prosecutors declined to participate in or oppose his release in accordance with the directive ofLos Angeles County District AttorneyGeorge Gascón that the prosecutors' role ends at sentencing and they should not influence decisions to release prisoners.[7] On January 13, 2022,California governorGavin Newsom blocked Sirhan's release on parole.[8] He was denied parole again on March 1, 2023.[9]
Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was born into anArabPalestinian Christian family[10][11] inMandatory Palestine, in Jerusalem'sMusrara neighborhood, and became aJordanian citizen in December 1949, just beforeJordan annexed the West Bank.[12][13][14] According to his mother, Mary, Sirhan was traumatized as a child by the violence he witnessed in theArab–Israeli conflict, including the death of his older brother, who was run over by a military vehicle that was swerving to evade gunfire.[15]
When Sirhan was 12 years old, his family immigrated to the US, moving briefly toNew York and then toCalifornia. He attendedEliot Junior High School,John Muir High School, John Marshall Junior High School (now calledThurgood Marshall Secondary School), andPasadena City College. Shortly after the family's move to California, Sirhan's father, Bishara Salame Sirhan, returned alone to the Middle East.[16] Standing 5 feet 5 inches (165 cm) and weighing 120 pounds (54 kg) at age 20, Sirhan moved toCorona to train to be ajockey while working at a stable but lost his job and abandoned the pursuit after suffering a head injury in a racing accident.[17]
Sirhan never became a US citizen, instead retaining his Jordanian citizenship.[11]
As an adult, Sirhan changed church denominations several times, joiningBaptist andSeventh-day Adventist churches.[18] In 1966, he joined theesoteric organizationAncient Mystical Order of the Rose Cross, one of theRosicrucian Orders.[19]
Around 12:15 a.m.PDT on June 5, 1968, Sirhan fired a.22 LRIver-Johnson Cadetrevolver[20] atUnited States SenatorRobert F. Kennedy and the crowd surrounding him in theAmbassador Hotel inLos Angeles, shortly after Kennedy had finished addressing supporters in the hotel's main ballroom. AuthorsGeorge Plimpton,Jimmy Breslin, andPete Hamill, former professional football playerRosey Grier[21] and 1960 Olympic gold medalistRafer Johnson were among several men who subdued and disarmed Sirhan after a struggle.[22]
Kennedy was shot three times—once in the head and twice in the back—with a fourth bullet passing through his jacket. He died about 26 hours later atGood Samaritan Hospital. Five other people at the event were also shot, all of whom recovered:Paul Schrade, an official with theUnited Auto Workers union; William Weisel, anABC TV unit manager; Ira Goldstein, a reporter with the Continental News Service;[23] Elizabeth Evans, a friend ofPierre Salinger, one of Kennedy's campaign aides; and Irwin Stroll, a teenage Kennedy volunteer.[24][25]
The assassination spawned many conspiracy theories, many of which claimed there was a "second gunman" or that Sirhan was not the true killer.[26]
In a 2018 interview withThe Washington Post,Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that he had traveled to California to meet with Sirhan in prison and that, after a relatively long conversation (the details of which he would not disclose), believed that Sirhan did not kill his father and that a second gunman was involved.[27]
Even though Sirhan admitted his guilt in a recorded confession while in police custody on June 9, a lengthy, publicized trial followed inThe People of the State of California v. Sirhan Sirhan. The judge did not accept Sirhan's confession and denied his request to withdraw his plea of "not guilty" to plead "guilty".[28]
On February 10, 1969, Sirhan's lawyers made a motion in chambers to enter a plea of guilty tofirst-degree murder in exchange for life imprisonment rather than thedeath penalty. Sirhan told Judge Herbert V. Walker that he wanted to withdraw his original plea of not guilty to plead guilty as charged on all counts. He also asked that his counsel "dissociate themselves from this case completely." The judge asked him what he wanted to do about sentencing, and Sirhan replied, "I will ask to be executed".[28] Walker denied the motion and said, "This court will not accept the plea." He also rejected Sirhan's request for his counsel to withdraw; his counsel entered another motion to withdraw from the case of their own volition, but Walker also denied that. Walker subsequently ordered that the record be sealed about the motion.[28]
The trial proceeded, and opening statements began on February 12. The lead prosecutor in the case wasLynn "Buck" Compton, aWorld War II veteran ofEasy Company fame who later became a justice of theCalifornia Court of Appeal.[29] David Fitts delivered the prosecution's opening statement, providing examples of Sirhan's preparations to kill Kennedy. The prosecution showed that Sirhan was seen at the Ambassador Hotel on June 3, two nights before the attack, to learn the building's layout, and that he visited a gun range on June 4. Alvin Clark, Sirhan's garbage collector, testified that Sirhan had told him a month before the attack of his intention to shoot Kennedy.[30]: par. 16
Sirhan's defense counsel included attorneyGrant Cooper, who had hoped to demonstrate that the killing had been the impulsive act of a man with a mental deficiency. But Walker admitted into evidence pages from three of Sirhan's journal notebooks that suggested the crime was premeditated and "quite calculating and willful". On March 3, Cooper asked Sirhan in direct testimony whether he had shot Kennedy; Sirhan replied, "Yes, sir", but then said that he did not bear Kennedy any ill will.[30] Sirhan also testified that he had killed Kennedy "with twenty years of malice aforethought". He explained in an interview withDavid Frost in 1989 that this referred to the time since thecreation of the State of Israel. He has maintained since then that he has no memory of the crime or of making that statement in court.[31]
The defense based its case primarily on the expert testimony ofBernard L. Diamond, a professor of law and psychiatry, who testified that Sirhan was suffering fromdiminished capacity at the time of the murder.[32]
Sirhan was convicted on April 17, 1969, and was sentenced six days later to death in the gas chamber. Three years later, his sentence was commuted to life in prison, owing to theCalifornia Supreme Court's decision inPeople v. Anderson, which ruled that capital punishment is a violation of theCalifornia Constitution's prohibition against cruel or unusual punishment. The February 1972 decision was retroactive, invalidating all existing death sentences in California.[30]
Sirhan's lawyerLawrence Teeter later argued that Grant Cooper was compromised by a conflict of interest and was, as a consequence, grossly negligent in defense of his client.[33] The defense moved for a new trial amid claims of setups, police bungles,hypnotism,brainwashing, blackmail and government conspiracies.[34][35] On June 5, 2003, coincidentally the 35th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination, Teeter petitioned a federal court in Los Angeles to move the case toFresno.[34][35] He argued that Sirhan could not get a fair hearing in Los Angeles, where a man who helped prosecute him was then a federal judge: U.S. District JudgeWilliam Matthew Byrne Jr. in Los Angeles was an assistant U.S. attorney during Sirhan's trial, and part of the prosecutorial team.[36]
Since 1994, Teeter had been trying to have state and federal courts overturn Sirhan's conviction, arguing his client was hypnotized and framed, possibly by a government conspiracy.[34][35] During one hearing, Teeter referred to testimony from the original trial transcripts regarding a prosecution eyewitness to the attack, authorGeorge Plimpton, in which he said that Sirhan looked "enormously composed. He seemed ... purged." This statement coincided with the defense's argument that Sirhan had shot Kennedy while in a hypnotic trance.[30] The motion was denied. Teeter died in 2005, and Sirhan declined other counsel to replace him.[37]
On November 26, 2011, Sirhan's defense teams filed court papers for a new trial, saying that "expert analysis of recently-uncovered evidence shows two guns were fired in the assassination and that Sirhan's revolver was not the gun that shot Kennedy"[10][38][39] and he "should be freed from prison or granted a new trial based on 'formidable evidence', asserting his innocence and 'horrendous violations' of his rights".[10]
On January 5, 2015, Sirhan's motion was denied by U.S. District JudgeBeverly Reid O'Connell in Los Angeles, who said that Sirhan "failed to meet the showing required for actual innocence" that might excuse his having failed to seek his freedom sooner in federal court. "Though petitioner advances several theories regarding the events of June 5, 1968, petitioner does not dispute that he fired eight rounds of gunfire in the kitchen pantry of the Ambassador Hotel", O'Connell wrote. "Petitioner does not show that it is more likely than not that no juror, acting reasonably, would have found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."
A motive cited for Sirhan's actions is the Middle East conflict.[40] After his arrest, Sirhan said, "I can explain it. I did it for my country".[40] Sirhan believed that he was deliberately betrayed by Kennedy's support for Israel in the June 1967Six-Day War,[41] which had begun exactly one year before the date of the assassination. During a search of Sirhan's apartment after his arrest, a spiral-bound notebook was found containing a diary entry that demonstrated that his anger had gradually fixated on Kennedy, who had promised to send 50 fighter jets to Israel if elected president.[citation needed] Sirhan's journal entry of May 18, 1968, read: "My determination to eliminate R.F.K. is becoming the more and more [sic] of an unshakable obsession ... Kennedy must die before June 5th".[40] They found other notebooks and diary entries expressing his growing rage at Kennedy; his journals also contained manyaphorisms that were thought to be his version of "free writing". He wrote in support of communism: "Long live Communism ... I firmly support the communist cause and its people ... American capitalism will fall and give way to the worker's dictatorship".[42]
The next day, on June 6, a front-page article in theLos Angeles Times interpreted the attack on Kennedy as an act ofantisemitism rather than political protest. The article read: "When the Jordanian nationalist, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, allegedly shot Kennedy, ostensibly because of the senator's advocacy of U.S. support for Israel, the crime with which he was charged was in essence another manifestation of the centuries-old hatred between Arab and Jew".[43]
M. T. Mehdi, then secretary-general of the Action Committee on American-Arab Relations, believed that Sirhan had acted in justifiable self-defense, stating: "Sirhan was defending himself against those 50Phantom jets Kennedy was sending to Israel".[citation needed] Mehdi wrote a 100-page book calledKennedy and Sirhan: Why?[44]
In a 1980 interview, Sirhan said he had been drunk on the night of the attack, which was also the anniversary of the1967 Arab-Israeli war: "You must remember the circumstances of that night, June 5. That was when I was provoked. That is when I initially went to observe the Jewish Zionist parade in celebration of the June 5, 1967, victory over the Arabs. That was the catalyst that triggered me on that night ... In addition, there was the consumption of the liquor, and I want the public to understand that".[37]
In 1971, Sirhan was housed in the Adjustment Center atSan Quentin State Prison.[45] He was subsequently transferred to theCorrectional Training Facility (CTF) inSoledad, California, where he was confined until 1992.[46][47] From 1992 to 2009, he was confined at theCalifornia State Prison (COR) inCorcoran, California, and lived in COR's Protective Housing Unit until he was moved to a harsher lockdown at COR in 2003.[46] In October 2009, ostensibly for his safety, he was transferred to thePleasant Valley State Prison inCoalinga, California, where he was housed in a cell by himself.[48] He was subsequently moved back to Corcoran.
On November 22, 2013, Sirhan was transferred from Corcoran toRichard J. Donovan Correctional Facility inSan Diego County. The transfer occurred on the 50th anniversary of theassassination of President John F. Kennedy. Still, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said that the transfer was "a routine matter of housing allotments" and its timing was "simply an unfortunate coincidence".[49]
On August 30, 2019, Sirhan was stabbed multiple times by another prisoner.[50][51] He was taken to a hospital, where his condition was reported as stable.[52] He returned to the prison two days later, after his discharge from the hospital.[53]
In a 1980 interview with M. T. Mehdi, Sirhan claimed that his actions were fueled by liquor and anger and complained that theparole board was not taking these "mitigating" circumstances into account when it continually denied his parole.[37]
In 1974,Bill Ayers andBernardine Dohrn dedicated their communist manifestoPrairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism to Sirhan (along with 200 others), hailing him as a courageouspolitical prisoner.[54] In February 1973, Sirhan's release was one of the demands of theBlack September Organization, whichtook American hostages at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum.[55]
In 1982, Sirhan told the parole board: "I sincerely believe that if Robert Kennedy were alive today, I believe he would not countenance singling me out for this kind of treatment. I think he would be among the first to say that, however horrible the deed I committed 14 years ago was, that it should not be the cause for denying me equal treatment under the laws of this country".[56][57]
Sirhan was denied parole for the 14th time in 2011.[58] He was denied parole again in 2016, at his 15th parole hearing. One of Sirhan's shooting victims from that night, Paul Schrade, aged 91 at the time of the hearing, testified in his support, stating his belief that a second shooter killed Kennedy and that Sirhan was intended to be a distraction from the real gunman by an unknown conspiracy.[59][60][61] Sirhan repeated his claim to have no memory of the shooting, saying: "It's all vague now. I'm sure you all have it in your records. I can't deny it or confirm it. I just wish this whole thing had never taken place." His parole was denied because he had not expressed adequate remorse for his crime or acknowledged its severity.[59]
On August 27, 2021, in his 16th appearance before the parole board, the board's two-person panel voted to grant Sirhan parole after finding that he no longer posed a threat to society.[6] He had served 53 years in prison. Two of Kennedy's surviving sons,Robert F. Kennedy Jr. andDouglas Kennedy, offered their support for parole during Sirhan's appearance before the parole board.[62] Parole Board Commissioner Robert Barton even told Sirhan, "We think that you have grown".[6] The decision was subject to a 120-day review by the California Board of Parole Hearings, after which thegovernor of California had 30 days to grant, reverse, or modify the decision.[63][64]
Six other surviving children of Robert F. Kennedy—Joseph P. Kennedy II, Courtney Kennedy,Kerry Kennedy,Christopher G. Kennedy,Maxwell T. Kennedy, andRory Kennedy—opposed parole for Sirhan, and urged the full parole board or GovernorGavin Newsom to reverse the recommendation.[65] They filed a statement with the parole board on August 27, 2021, opposing Sirhan's release.[66] Rory Kennedy wrote a guest essay in theNew York Times saying that Sirhan did not deserve parole, citing his lack of remorse and unwillingness to accept responsibility.[67]
Neither Los Angeles County District AttorneyGeorge Gascón nor any office staff appeared at the parole hearing or took any position on parole for Sirhan. This was a break from the previous practice of the prosecution, which had opposed parole in all of Sirhan's previous hearings. Upon taking office, Gascón had issued a directive that his office's "default policy" was not to attend parole hearings or take a position on parole.[66][68][69] It was later acknowledged that Sirhan's parole was also aided by a recent California law that required the parole board to consider things like age, health, and childhood trauma as mitigating factors—things it had not considered before.[5]
On January 13, 2022, California GovernorGavin Newsom denied Sirhan's latest bid for parole.[8] Newsom wrote an op-ed in theLos Angeles Times stating that even though the state parole board had recommended Sirhan for parole, the severity of the crime and Sirhan's "current refusal to accept responsibility for it" led him to deny the request.[70]
At Sirhan's 17th parole board appearance on March 1, 2023, he was again denied parole.[71] Sirhan has waived his right to contest deportation if he is paroled.[72]
Pro football player Roosevelt Grier (l) helps restrain Sirhan (c).
... Kennedy had joined those who believe there was a second gunman, and that it was not Sirhan who killed his father.
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