Parole denied for Robert Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan, inmate at Donovan Prison – NBC 7 San Diego

Sirhan Sirhan, the man who assassinated Senator Robert F. Kennedy in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in 1968, had his latest request for parole denied on Friday.

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), Sirhan, 80, will be eligible for another hearing on his release from prison in three years.

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

This is Sirhan's 17th parole hearing.

Sirhan was most recently denied parole for three years in March 2023, with an administrative review of the denial resulting in his hearing date being moved up, according to the CDCR.

In 2021, a two-member state parole board 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.”

The governor wrote: “The most obvious evidence of Mr. Sirhan's lack of insight is his changing portrayal of his assassination of Senator Kennedy and his current refusal to accept responsibility for his crimes.”

Sirhan was found guilty of first-degree murder and assault in April 1969. On June 5, 1968, he had murdered 42-year-old Kennedy as he gave a speech at the Ambassador Hotel. Kennedy had just won the California primary and was moving ever closer to the Democratic presidential nomination. Five other people were shot in the attack but 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 claimed to be suffering from amnesia as a result of excessive alcohol consumption and denied the murder, although he admitted the crime in court during the trial.