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California Governor Gavin Newsom says the killer did not have the ‘response and awareness’ necessary for his release.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has denied the pardon of Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian refugee serving a life sentence for the 1968 assassination of US President Robert F Kennedy.
Newsom made the announcement Thursday after a California inspection agency in August recommended Sirhan’s release from prison, according to a review by board law enforcement officials and the governor himself. He had previously been denied parole 15 times.
Commenting on his decision in the Los Angeles Times, Newsom said he did not agree with the Board of Parole Hearings that the 77-year-old deserved to be released.
“After a thorough review of the case, including the record in the California State Archives, I am convinced that Sirhan did not establish the necessary authority and intelligence to support his release in the region,” Newsom wrote.
Sirhan’s lawyer, Angela Berry, did not respond to a request for comment. He had previously said that Sirhan had never been charged with criminal misconduct and that prison officials considered him to be under threat.
Sirhan was charged with murdering Kennedy, 42, in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968.
The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a U.S. senator and former U.S. Attorney General. Kennedy died the next day. Kennedy’s older brother President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.
Sirhan has said he does not remember the assassination of Robert Kennedy, although he also said he shot Kennedy because he was angry with his support for Israel.
After the parole hearing, Kennedy’s 93-year-old widow Ethel protested Sirhan’s release, saying “our family and our country have lost countless millions because of the atrocities committed by one man”.
Newsom also referred to what he called Sirhan’s “reversible story” on his murder and his refusal to take responsibility as evidence that he was unworthy of release.
Newsom added that the scandal was “one of the most serious crimes in American history”.
Sirhan was sentenced to death in 1969, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in California after the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
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