A California board denied parole on Wednesday for Robert F. Kennedy’s convicted assassin, Sirhan Sirhan.
A panel of two California parole board commissioners concluded after a four-hour hearing that Sirhan, a Palestinian Christian, hadn’t shown adequate remorse or understanding of the crime that was mourned by a nation still recovering from the assassination of former US president John F. Kennedy, Robert’s brother.
Sirhan, now 66, spoke at length and expressed sorrow, but said he doesn’t remember shooting Robert Kennedy or five other victims on June 4, 1968, in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel, where Robert Kennedy stood moments after claiming victory in the California presidential primary.
“Every day of my life, I have great remorse and deep regret,” he said at the hearing at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga.
He pleaded with the panel to give him a date for release, saying he wants to “get lost in the woodwork” and live out his life.
Sirhan said he understood that he might be deported to his native Jordan if released and was willing to accept that.
He said no one in his family is involved in politics and suggested he wouldn’t be either if he was released.
The panel chairman, Mike Prizmich, and the deputy commissioner, Randy Kevorkian, told Sirhan he must seek further self-help courses, come to terms with the crime and show evidence of his improvement when he gets his next parole hearing, which will be in five years.
Sirhan, his hair graying and missing one tooth in the front of his mouth, appeared cheerful as he entered the hearing room. He bid the commissioners “good afternoon” and was talkative during the hearing, telling commissioners he is a practicing Christian who attends services every Sunday.
Sirhan said he was put in solitary confinement after he became a target of hatred in the prison following the Sept. 11 attacks.
Fellow inmates thought he was a Muslim, he said.
Sirhan was originally sentenced to death over objections by Kennedy family members who said they wanted no more killing.
The sentence was commuted to life in prison when the US Supreme Court briefly outlawed the death penalty in 1972.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not