The man allegedly behind Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s murder was just granted parole.

Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian accused and convicted of the infamous 1968 gunning of Senator Robert Kennedy, has finally succeeded on his 16th appeal after the previous fifteen were denied, keeping him away from the prospects of freedom.

The ruling will be reviewed within 120 days by the California parole board before being sent to the governor for 30 days. If granted, Sirhan could become a free man and will go on to live with his brother, Munir, in the latter’s Los Angeles house.

The septuagenarian has spent 53 years behind bars after being convicted of first-degree murder in 1969 and commuted to a life sentence in 1972, with 4 years spent in jail during his trial. He was 24 at the time of the event.

Douglas Kennedy, the senator’s son, has long supported Sirhan’s release along with his brother, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and has met the man during the virtual hearing session set by the court.

Douglas expressed his sympathy for Sirhan, saying: “I'm overwhelmed just by being able to view Mr. Sirhan face to face… And I am grateful today to see him as a human being worthy of compassion and love."

Wearing his blue prison uniform, Sirhan smiled and nodded at Douglas’ following statement:

"I do have some love for you."

The final decision now lies in the hand of the governor who will determine whether Sirhan will finally regain what he lost more than half a century ago: His freedom.

The Night of Robert F. Kennedy’s Assassination

Senator Robert F. Kennedy was the brother of US President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963.

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Coming from an affluent political family, both have joined the Democratic Party and have vied for a powerful political position with JFK becoming president in 1961 and Robert becoming a Senator for New York in 1965.

On June 5, 1968, shortly after winning the California primaries, Robert was going through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel when he was shot three times by a .22-caliber revolver while 5 other people were declared dead. Witnesses have pointed at Sirhan Sirhan as the perpetrator, wrestling him to the ground before police forces took him into custody.

The senator was declared dead after 25 hours.

Who is Sirhan Sirhan?

Sirhan is a Palestinian refugee who was displaced at the age of 4 along with his family during the creation of “Israel.” 

Relocated to Jordan at first, he witnessed the suffering of Palestinian refugees and watched in despair as his brother was run over by a military vehicle during a confrontation between the Jordanian and  Israeli armies.

The chagrin of the young Palestinian boy was insurmountable.

Immigrating to the US at the age of 12, Sirhan lived in New York before eventually moving to Los Angeles. He was never granted American citizenship.

After Robert F. Kennedy’s death and his public trial in what became known as The People of the State of California v. Sirhan Sirhan, he was sentenced to death in the gas chamber, but the sentence was overturned and he was commuted to life. 

Sirhan Sirhan has repeatedly stated that he had no recollection of ever gunning down the senator, a claim corroborated by Kennedy’s son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who after a lengthy meeting with Sirhan in 2018 told him he believed in his innocence and that a second gunman was the one responsible for the assassination. 

A wide portion of the public in the US are skeptical of Sirhan’s involvement, notably as the man repeatedly denied his responsibility with too many threads left loose.

A possible motive behind the assassination, as the court declared, would be Sirhan’s anger at Kennedy for pledging his full support for “Israel” during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and vowing to send 50 phantom jet bombers to the Zionist “state.” This allegedly made the Palestinian refugee furious and made him plan for the senator’s death.

Sirhan's attorney, Angela Berry, described him as a four-year-old refugee who "witnessed atrocities most of us only see in movies or in our worst nightmares" before immigrating to the US as a teenager.

Sirhan’s case is one that still shakes the US political narrative, as well as the public one, to its core.