Sirhan Sirhan, in prison in San Diego, is again denied parole in connection with the assassination of Senator Kennedy

Sirhan Sirhan, convicted of the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was denied parole at a hearing at a San Diego prison.

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Sirhan, 80, will be eligible for another hearing in three years.

Friday's hearing took place at the RJ Donovan Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa, where he is being held.

For Sirhan, this is the 17th hearing of this kind.

He was last denied parole for three years in March 2023. According to correctional officials, an administrative review of that denial resulted in his hearing date being moved up.

In 2021, a two-member state panel recommended that Sirhan be released on parole, but Governor Gavin Newsom later reversed that decision, saying Sirhan “currently poses a threat to public safety.”

“After decades in prison, Mr. Sirhan has failed to address the failings that led him to assassinate Senator Kennedy,” the governor said in a statement denying parole. “Mr. Sirhan lacks the insight that would prevent him from making the same dangerous decisions he has made in the past.”

Sirhan was convicted in April 1969 of alleged murder and assault in connection with the assassination of 42-year-old Kennedy on June 5, 1968, as he was giving a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

Kennedy had just won the California primary, moving closer to the Democratic presidential nomination. Five other people who were shot during the attack survived.

Sirhan, a Palestinian from Jordan, was initially sentenced to death, but the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment after the state Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972. He has now served more than 50 years in prison.

Sirhan had previously stated that he was suffering from amnesia due to excessive alcohol consumption and denied committing the murder, although he admitted the crime in court during the trial.

– City news service