Count Robert F. Kennedy Jr. among those people who doubt the man convicted of killing his father, Robert Kennedy, 50 years ago is actually the person who mortally shot the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
After visiting Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant who admitted to shooting Kennedy at his trial in 1969, at a California state prison complex outside of San Diego, the 64-year-old Kennedy Jr. told the Washington Post he believes there could have been a second gunman and wants a reinvestigation.
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“I got to a place where I had to see Sirhan,” Kennedy said, referring to the three-hour meeting late last year. He didn’t say exactly what he was told, but the discussion did cap months of research into the 1968 murder at a hotel in Los Angeles.
“I went there because I was curious and disturbed by what I had seen in the evidence,” he added. “I was disturbed that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father. My father was the chief law enforcement officer in this country. I think it would have disturbed him if somebody was put in jail for a crime they didn’t commit.”
Sirhan, who was arrested at the scene of the murder, was convicted and sentenced to death. However, that commuted to a life sentence in 1972. He repeatedly has said that he doesn’t remember pulling the trigger and although he has appealed, it has been rejected every time.
An autopsy report spurred doubts about the circumstances of shooting, as Kennedy was shot three times, including once in the head from behind. However, Sirhan was standing in front of him when the shooting happened.
Bobby Kennedy served as U.S. attorney general and was a senator from New York at the time of his death. He was the younger brother of John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.
Kennedy Jr. has espoused controversial views in the past. Last year he came out and argued that some vaccines were unsafe for children.
