Sacramento: California governor on Thursday rejected the release of Robert F.
Kennedy Assassin Sirhan Sirhan from prison more than half a century after the assassination in 1968 left a deep wound on one of the darkest times of America.
Governor Gavin Newsom, who has cited RFK as “political hero” and embrace the historical significance of the decision, rejecting the recommendation of a panel of two commissioners liberation parole.
Newscom said Sirhan, now 77, pose unreasonable threat to public safety.
“Senator Kennedy Assassination Mr.
Sirhan is one of the most famous crimes in American history,” wrote Newscom in his decision.
“After a decade in prison, he failed to overcome its shortcomings to kill Senator Kennedy.
Mr.
Sirhan did not have an insight that would prevent dangerous make the kind of decisions that he has made in the past.” He said factors in the decision included Sirhan’s refusal to accept responsibility for their crimes, lack of insight and accountability needed to support the safe release, failure to relinquish violence committed in its name, and its failure to reduce risk factors.
Kennedy, US Senator from New York, was shot moments after he claimed victory in the Democratic Presidential Primary Pivotal California.
Five others were wounded during the assassination at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
The massacre took place five years after his brother, President John F.
Kennedy, was assassinated.
Sirhan will be scheduled for a new parole hearing no later than 2023.
Sirhan will ask the judge to overturn the rejection Newsom, said Defense attorney, Angela Berry.
“We fully expect that the judicial review on the governor’s decision would indicate that the governor is wrong,” he said.
State legislation states that prisoners should be deceived unless they pose a public safety risk that does not make sense, he said, adding that “not IOTA of evidence exists to suggest Mr.
Sirhan was still dangerous to society.” He said the parole process has been politicized and Newscom “choose to override the experts themselves (on the board of parole), ignoring the law.” Commissioner parole find Sirhan suitable for release “due to rehabilitation impressive record over the past half century,” he said.
“Since the mid-1980s, Mr.
Sirhan was consistently found by prison psychologists and psychiatrists to pose no risk of harm that does not make sense to the public.” During the parole hearing, white-haired Sirhan calls Kennedy “the hope of the world.” But she stopped taking full responsibility for the shooting he says he does not remember because he was drunk.
“That hurt me the knowledge of the terrible thing like that, if I really did it,” said Sirhan.
Recommendations Panole Panol August to release Sirhan divide the iconic Kennedy family, with two sons RFK – Douglas Kennedy and Robert F.
Kennedy Jr.
– Supports release.
But six of the nine Kennedy children who are still alive and Ethel Kennedy, RFK’s wife, urged Newsom to block parole.
The panel’s decision was based on several new California law since he was denied parole in 2016 – the 15th time he lost his bid for release.
Commissioners asked to consider that Sirhan commit crimes at a young age, when he was 24 years old; that he is now elderly; And that the Palestinian Christian who immigrated from Jordan suffered childhood trauma of conflict in the Middle East.
In addition, the Los Angeles prosecutor did not object to his parole, following the policy of the District Prosecutor George George that the prosecutor was not involved in deciding whether detainees cleared for release.
That decision has a personal element to Newsom, a fellow Democrat, showing photos RFK in official office and his home.
One is of Kennedy with his deceased father Newscom.
Newsom previously had the fortune Sirhan reflect the gravity in his hand, said it is an emotional issue that echoed back to the 60s and reopening memories to forget.
Sirhan was originally sentenced to death, but the sentence was communicated to life when the California Supreme Court briefly banned the death penalty in 1972.
He now has a heart condition and has survived prostate cancer, valley fever and throat cut by another prisoner in 2019., said his attorney, Angela Berry.
Munir Sirhan told her brother to live with him, if he was released and deported to Jordan.
Sirhan Sirhan waived his right to fight deportation.