Prison authorities of the state of California have voted this Friday in favor of granting parole to the assassin of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan, who has been in prison for 53 years since he perpetrated the assassination in 1968. The decision, adopted by a panel of two people, must still be reviewed by the parole board in the next 90 days, before it is final, according to the US newspaper ‘The Washington Post’.
In the event this vote is upheld, state governor Gavin Newsom will have another 30 days to decide whether to uphold the measure, reverse it, or return it to the board. The newspaper, which quotes a brother of Sirhan, noted that the panel took into account that the prisoner no longer poses a threat to society when recommending his release.
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Sirhan is serving a life sentence for shooting Kennedy on June 5, 1968, just after he had won the Democratic Party primaries in California that made him a favorite for the presidential elections that same year, in which Republican Richard Nixon prevailed. .
This Friday’s hearing was the sixteenth to which Sirhan appeared to decide whether to be released on parole, a benefit that he has been eligible for since 1975, but has so far been denied.
The condemned man, 77, reminded the two commissioners of the board that “more than half a century has passed.” “And that impulsive young man that he was no longer exists … Senator Kennedy was the hope of the world and I injured him, and I hurt everyone and it hurts me to experience that,” said Sirhan. The Post also indicated that the senator’s family, who was the brother of former President John F. Kennedy (1961-1963), backed Sirhan’s parole.
The subject was sentenced to death in 1969, but was commuted to life in prison with the possibility of parole when capital punishment was overturned in California in 1972, for a brief period. In February 2016, Sirhan’s request for parole was rejected.
