For nearly 50 years, Sirhan Sirhan has been consistent: He says he doesn’t remember fatally shooting Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in a crowded kitchen pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
The Jerusalem native, now 71, has given no inkling that he will change his version of events at his 15th parole hearing on Wednesday in San Diego. He is serving a life sentence that was commuted from death when the California Supreme Court briefly outlawed capital punishment in 1972.
During his previous parole hearing in 2011, Sirhan told officials about his regret but again said he could not remember the events of June 5, 1968. The parole board ruled that Sirhan hadn’t shown sufficient remorse and didn’t understand the enormity of the crime less than five years after the killing of President John F. Kennedy — the senator’s older brother — and two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
His memory will be tested this time in front of Paul Schrade, 91, a Kennedy confidante who was one of five people injured in the shooting. Schrade will appear for the first time at a Sirhan parole hearing.
Schrade, who declined in a brief interview to preview his planned remarks to the parole board, has steadfastly advanced the view that there was more than one gunman.
Sirhan initially refused to appear at the parole hearing at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, where he has been held since 2013, said Laurie Dusek one of his attorneys. Memories of the 2011 hearing made him physically ill, but Sirhan relented after Dusek begged him to come and said Schrade would be there.
Sirhan, who skipped earlier parole hearings, sent word through his brother, Munir, that he would appear, but Dusek said she didn’t know what he will say, if anything.
“If you don’t show, you’ve got nothing to gain,” Dusek said she wrote to Sirhan.
Schrade, who was western regional director of the United Auto Workers Union when he was shot in the head, was labor chair of Kennedy’s presidential campaign and was at the senator’s side the night he was gunned down moments after delivering a victory speech in California’s pivotal Democratic primary.
Schrade has devoted the second half of his life to preserving Kennedy’s legacy and trying to unravel questions surrounding the assassination. He proposed the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools at the site of the former Ambassador Hotel and has a library named for him there.
Schrade, who has kept a low profile in recent years, “is a family friend of the Kennedy’s, he’s very much in touch with the senator’s children,” Dusek said. “He feels that justice has not been served.”
Author Dan Moldea said Schrade was instrumental in arranging 14 hours of interviews with Sirhan for Moldea’s 1995 book, “The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy,” which concluded Sirhan acted alone. Moldea began his research believing there was more than one gunman.
“Paul is a great man of honorable intentions at all times, but Paul has grabbed at every thread of conspiracy in this case,” Moldea said. “When I concluded that Sirhan did it and did it alone, basically Paul cut me out of his life.”
Sirhan’s lack of memory of the attack makes expressions of remorse and accepting responsibility difficult.
In one of many emotional outbursts during his 1969 trial, he blurted out that he had committed the crime “with 20 years of malice aforethought.”
That and his declaration when arrested, “I did it for my country,” were his only relevant comments before he said he didn’t remember shooting Kennedy.
Last year, a federal judge in Los Angeles rejected arguments by Sirhan’s lawyers that their client was not in position to fire the fatal shot and that a second shooter may have been responsible.
Some claim 13 shots were fired while Sirhan’s gun held only eight bullets, and that the fatal shot appeared to come from behind Kennedy while Sirhan faced him.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
So all he has to do is say: “Oh yeah, I remember stabbing him….and I’m really, really sorry” and he can walk? I thought all those who had their sentenced changed from death to life got life without parole.
I agree with shipffxr
Release him, give him a complete review of Barry the KENYAN PRESIDENT OF THE US !
here is a man that should not still be alive, he should have been executed long ago
I agree.
I agree also.
Yes let him set were he is …..and roit
I wonder if he would like to talks to berry
you mean Obama hasn’t pardoned him yet?
Shouldn’t give him any ideas about it. Cause he may consider it.
He will never get out! He is human debris.
He is from the exotic race that is now loved and in fashion.
Just in time – before obama leaves office.
Once again we see why we should have and use the death penalty. Once a person is put to death there is no chance they will ever be freed to walk the streets again.
Sirhan should live the rest of his life in prison. I’m not a fan of the Kennedys but murdering people needs to be treated seriously. Granting parole, even after all these years, would be way too lenient. I can’t believe the parole board is even wasting time on this guy.
Bobby was shot from behind…..read about it…..Moldea sold out……he is not the investigative reporter he once was. There was so much evidence and eye witness accounts . The panels in the hotel that had gunshots in were removed and destroyed so that they could not be tested for direction and projectories of the bullets fired. The last minute switched security guard Cesar Sanchez pulled the trigger.
Reasonable doubt.More than likely he was a Manchurian candidate.Seems like every where I go ,blogs convict people without trials of their peers.Check out the Oregon debacle
Go ahead and release him, ISIS needs another fighter.
Are all of you here just a bunch of internet Trolls? Have you not looked anywhere past the newspaper and TV news disinfo about Sirhan’s guilt or innocence? Do you not know that the coroner’s autopsy report clearly states that RFK was shot from behind in the back of the head, with powder burns present. That means close range, as in right behind him! Sirhan claims to not remember, to which skeptics would respond, “How convenient…” Are you unaware of the fact that RFK had been deeply investigating organised crime since the beginning of his tenure as AG, and intended to break its back? Do you not think it the least bit suspicious that both brother and nephew were also publicly “sacrificed,” and while his other brother Ted was not taken out, he could have been removed for “bad behavior” at a moments notice by those who pull the strings and levers over our highly developed yet cleverly disguised tyranny? Please use your mind, engage your brain before uttering such nonsense. consider the FACTS of the case before spewing such rubbish.
HE SHOULD REMAIN IN JAIL AND PAY FOR WHAT HE DID TO AMERICA AND BOBBY’S FAMILY.
He, like the Manson family, should only leave prison in a casket.
How about he should be hypnotized and/or Scopalomine’d so as to find out who programmed him to kill Bobby, instead?
From my reading of history, it’s the rich bastards who always hire the “lone nuts” and bribe police/investigators/governments to look the other way…probably starting with Lincoln, who introduced the use of the Greenback, totally pissing off the banksters because they wouldn’t get a cent from interest on loans to the USG.
Here’s what they said in a British paper called the Hazard Circular about it:
“Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power and chattel slavery destroyed. This, I and my European friends are glad of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborers, while the European plan, led by England, is that capital shall control labor by controlling wages. This can be done by controlling the money. The great debt that capitalists will see to it is made out of the war, must be used as a means to control the volume of money. To accomplish this, the bonds [government debt to the bankers] must be used as a banking basis. . . . It will not do to allow the greenback, as it is called, to circulate as money any length of time, as we cannot control that.”
-Hazard Circular 1862
Source: Quoted in Charles Lindburgh, Banking and Currency and the Money Trust (Washington D.C.: National Capital Press, 1913), page 102
“If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become endurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.”
~Hazard Circular
Source: London Times 1865
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Likewise, when Garfield was assassinated, it wasn’t long after his inaugural address, in which he stated:
“The refunding of the national debt at a lower rate of interest should be accomplished without compelling the withdrawal of the national-bank notes, and thus disturbing the business of the country.”
— James A. Garfield(1831-1881) 20th President of the United States (1881)
Source: Inaugural Address, March 14, 1881
(banksters often “contracted the money-supply” by withdrawing their debt-notes from circulation as a way to cause financial panics and thus demonstrate their power.)
“The chief duty of the National Government in connection with the currency of the country is to coin money and declare its value. Grave doubts have been entertained whether Congress is authorized by the Constitution to make any form of paper money legal tender. The present issue of United States notes has been sustained by the necessities of war; but such paper should depend for its value and currency upon its convenience in use and its prompt redemption in coin at the will of the holder, and not upon its compulsory circulation. These notes are not money, but promises to pay money. If the holders demand it, the promise should be kept.”
— James A. Garfield(1831-1881) 20th President of the United States (1881)
Source: Inaugural Address, March 14, 1891
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Similarly, JFK had plans to expand the use of Silver Certificates(guaranteed redeemable IN silver at specific banks) and tighten controls on the banksters abilities to manipulate the credit of the United States; if you don’t believe me, check the content of the VERY FIRST executive order that LBJ issued.
Bobby may have been killed because his investigations into Mafia and other organized criminal activities either would soon have revealed or had ALREADY revealed the corporate and military connections with organized criminals – and none of those bastards had any intention of going to jail…that, and he was quite likely to have been fully privy to JFK’s plans concerning the money supply, and desired to continue or expand his policies.
“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
– Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom (1913)
But we’ll never know unless and until we find out who Sirhan’s handlers were(are, if any are still alive, that is). Even then, the banksters are VERY likely to have hired someone to hire someone to hire someone to kill RFK…for example, starting with one of the complaisant devil-worshipping heads of one of their tax-exempt Foundations who hired a “think tank” group of talking heads, one of whom hired those experts in hypnosis, mind-control, and etc. to co-opt that Manchurian candidate, programming him to do what he did on command, a post-hypnotic suggestion he’d carry out without even thinking about it…especially if part of the programming was to cause a strong mental block and/or permanent amnesia about the incident immediately after firing the shots.
There have been a number of people who have investigated the “investigation” into the circumstances surrounding RFK’s assassination, and few of them in any way corroborate “the official story,” which scenario is rather similar to the facts surrounding 911, don’t you think? Use youtube’s search window for vids about Bobby Kennedy, and you’ll find more than one.
In short, then, anyone who trusts what any gov’t agent says about anything, ever, is not only a damn fool but quite likely a damned fool, as well.