Robert F. Kennedy Assassin Sirhan Sirhan Denied Parole

Topline

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday overruled the recommendation of the California Board of Parole Hearings’ to release 77-year-old Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.

Sirhan Sirhan at a parole hearing Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016, at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional … [+] Facility in San Diego.

Gregory Bull/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Key Facts

Newsom wrote in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that Sirhan had not “developed the accountability and insight required to support his safe release into the community.”

The decision came following five months of deliberation by the governor, who said he idolized Kennedy and keeps a photo of Kennedy with his late father, Judge William Newsom, on his desk, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Six of Kennedy’s nine surviving children urged Newsom to reverse the board’s decision, saying in a joint statement that the board had “inflicted enormous additional pain” on them.

Sirhan Sirhan is led away from the Ambassador Hotel after shooting Robert F. Kennedy.

Bettmann Archive

Key Background

Sirhan shot Kennedy with a revolver in Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel, where Kennedy was celebrating his victory in two state primary elections for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination. A Palestinian who emigrated to the United States, Sirhan has sometimes attributed his actions to Kennedy’s advocacy of U.S. military support for Israel. The killing was just one of many assassinations of high-profile political figures during the ‘60s, taking place two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Sirhan was initially sentenced to death for Kennedy’s murder, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972, after California abolished the death penalty. In 2021, Sirhan expressed regret for the killing, saying that “Sen. Kennedy was the hope of the world and I injured, and I harmed all of them, and it pains me to experience that, the knowledge for such a horrible deed,” the Washington Post reported.

Contra

Robert F. Kennedy’s son Douglas Kennedy told the California Board of Parole Hearings that he was moved by Sirhan’s remorse and he felt “grateful today to see him as a human being worthy of compassion and love.” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also wrote in support of granting parole, the Washington Post reported.

Big Number

16. That’s how many times Sirhan has applied for parole.

Crucial Quote

“After decades in prison, he has failed to address the deficiencies that led him to assassinate Senator Kennedy,” Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in a statement. “Mr. Sirhan lacks the insight that would prevent him from making the same types of dangerous decisions he made in the past.”