Sirhan Sirhan | Biography

On June 5, 1968, a young Palestinian immigrant, Sirhan Sirhan, assassinated New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy as he walked through the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Kennedy was the younger brother of assassinated thirty-fifth president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, who had appointed Robert as attorney general during his administration. Robert Kennedy went on to the senate, winning reelection in 1964.He had declared his own candidacy for the democratic nomination early in 1968. He had become a spokesman for liberal democrats, a critic of President Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam policy, and an Israel supporter. By early June of that year, Kennedy had won five presidential primaries, including the one in California. Pleased with the results, he spoke to his aides and followers for a few minutes before leaving the hotel. As he left through a downstairs kitchen hallway, Kennedy was shot eight times from close range. The shooter was grabbed by Kennedy's unofficial bodyguards, former football great Roosevelt Grier and Olympic star Rafer Johnson.

Sirhan Sirhan was not a newcomer to the United States. Born on March 19, 1944 in Palestine, he and his family had moved to the United States in 1956. Sirhan attended Lutheran and public school and completed two years at Pasadena City College. Sirhan took on various odd jobs after college without success, and by 1968, he was without work and depressed.

Although witnesses had seen the shooting and only one shooter, a conspiracy theory emerged, just as it had with the assassination of the president. To some experts, questions remained unanswered. An LAPD weapons expert testified that the eight bullets fired at Kennedy had come from Sirhan's.22-caliber pistol. But one of the bullets, declared the coroner, hit Kennedy from behind. Since Sirhan was facing Kennedy when he fired, some concluded that a second person must have been involved

Sirhan Sirhan was vehemently against the senator's pro-Israel sympathies. The defense contended that this had pushed a mentally unbalanced man over the edge. He was tried on a defense of impaired judgment, which the jury rejected. Psychologists and psychiatrists testified for the defense and for the prosecution. They concluded that although mentally troubled, Sirhan was not so unbalanced that he could not have planned and carried out the murder. Sirhan appeared unmoved and unremorseful at the end of the trial in 1969 when the sentence was handed down. He was found guilty and sentenced to death in the San Quentin gas chamber. The sentence, however, was later commuted to life imprisonment.