Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian terrorist who murdered U.S. presidential candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) 53 years ago over his support for Israel, could be released from prison within a few months, multiple media outlets reported over the weekend.
Sirhan, a Christian, Jerusalem-born Jordanian citizen and naturalized American, shot the 42-year-old brother of the late President John F. Kennedy—assassinated four and a half years earlier in Texas—at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968. RFK had just delivered a victory speech after winning the California Democratic Party primary.
A California Board of Parole Hearings (CBPH) panel on Friday recommended the release of Sirhan, 77, after two members of the Kennedy family, including the victim’s son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., sent letters on his behalf. He has been denied parole 15 times in the past, according to Reuters.
Sirhan, who was convicted of the first-degree murder of RFK—was sentenced to death in 1969. His sentence was commuted in 1972 to “life imprisonment with the possibility of parole,” when the California Supreme Court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional. He has been incarcerated for the past decades in the R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.