INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Robert F Kennedy Jr supports the call for a re-investigation of the assassination of his father.
Just before Christmas, Robert F
pulled up to the massive Richard J
Donovan Correctional Center, a California state prison complex in the desert outside San Diego that holds nearly 4,000 inmates
Kennedy was there to visit Sirhan B
Sirhan, the man convicted of killing his father, Sen
Kennedy, nearly 50 years ago.While his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, waited in the car, Robert Kennedy Jr
met with Sirhan for three hours, he revealed to The Washington Post last week
It was the culmination of months of research by Kennedy into the assassination, including speaking with witnesses and reading the autopsy
and police reports."I got to a place where I had to see Sirhan," Kennedy said
He would not discuss the specifics of their conversation
But when it was over, Kennedy had joined those who believe there was a second gunman, and that it was not Sirhan who killed his father."I
went there because I was curious and disturbed by what I had seen in the evidence," said Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and the third
oldest of his father's 11 children
"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." Evidence photographs of the gun used in
the assassination plot to kill Robert F Kennedy at Paul Schrade's Los Angeles home.Kennedy, 64, said he doesn't know if his involvement in
the case will change anything
But he now supports the call for a re-investigation of the assassination led by Paul Schrade, who also was shot in the head as he walked
behind Kennedy in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles but survived.Kennedy was just 14 when he lost his father
Even now, people tell him how much Bobby Kennedy meant to them.RFK's death - five years after his brother, President John F
Kennedy, was gunned down in Dallas and two months after civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr
was killed in Memphis - devastated a country already beset by chaos.In 1968, the Vietnam War raged, American cities had erupted in riots
after MLK's assassination and tensions between war protesters and supporters were growing uglier
Robert Kennedy's newly launched presidential bid had raised hopes that the New York Democrat and former attorney general could somehow unite
The gunshots fired that June night changed all that.Though Sirhan admitted at his trial in 1969 that he shot Kennedy, he claimed from the
start that he had no memory of doing so
And midway through Sirhan's trial, prosecutors provided his lawyers with an autopsy report that launched five decades of
controversy: Kennedy was shot four times at point-blank range from behind, including the fatal shot behind his ear
But Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian immigrant, was standing in front of him.Was there a second gunman The debate rages to this day. Paul
Schrade survived being shot by Sirhan but believes a second gunman shot Robert F Kennedy.But the legal system has not entertained doubts
A jury convicted Sirhan of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death in 1969, which was commuted to a life term in 1972
Sirhan's appeals have been rejected at every level, as recently as 2016, even with the courts considering new evidence that has emerged over
the years that as many as 13 shots were fired - Sirhan's gun held only eight bullets - and that Sirhan may have been subjected to coercive
hypnosis, a real life "Manchurian candidate.His case is closed
His lawyers are now launching a longshot bid to have the Inter-American Court of Human Rights hold an evidentiary hearing, while Schrade is
hoping for a group such as the Innocence Project to take on the case
A spokesman for the Innocence Project said they do not discuss cases at the consideration stage.In the final court rejection of Sirhan's
Magistrate Judge Andrew Wistrich ruled, "Even if the second shooter's bullet was the one that killed Senator Kennedy, [Sirhan] would be
liable [for murder] as an aider and abettor." And if Sirhan was unaware of the second shooter, Wistrich wrote that the scenario of a second
gunman who shot Kennedy "at close range with the same type of gun and ammunition as [Sirhan] was using, but managed to escape the crowded
room without notice of almost any of the roomful of witnesses, lacks any evidentiary support."- - -On June 5, 1968, Kennedy had just won the
California Democratic presidential primary and delivered a victory speech to a delirious crowd.At 12:15 a.m., the 42-year-old candidate and
Schrade left the celebration, walking through the hotel pantry en route to a news conference
Schrade was a regional director of the United Auto Workers who had helped Kennedy round up labor support, and Kennedy had singled him out
for thanks in his victory speech moments earlier.Schrade, now 93, still recalls the scene in the pantry vividly."He immediately started
shaking hands" with kitchen workers, Schrade said of Kennedy
I was shaking violently, and I fell
I saw flashes and heard crackling
The crackling actually was all the other bullets being fired."Witnesses reported that Kennedy said, "Is everybody OK Is Paul all
right"Kennedy was still conscious as his wife, Ethel, pregnant with their 11th child, rushed to his side
He lived for another day and died at 1:44 a.m
June 6, 1968.Schrade was shot above the forehead but the bullet bounced off his skull
Four other people, including ABC news producer William Weisel, were also wounded
All survived.Sirhan was captured immediately; he had a .22-caliber revolver in his hand
Karl Uecker, an Ambassador Hotel maitre d' who was escorting Kennedy through the pantry, testified that he grabbed Sirhan's wrist and pinned
it down after two shots and that Sirhan continued to fire wildly while being held down, never getting close to Kennedy
An Ambassador waiter and a Kennedy aide also said they tackled Sirhan after two or three shots.Several other witnesses also said he was not
close enough to place the gun against Kennedy's back, where famed Los Angeles coroner Thomas Noguchi found powder burns on the senator's
jacket and on his hair, indicating shots fired at close contact
These witnesses provided more proof for those who insist a second gunman was involved.Both the Los Angeles District Attorney's office and
the Los Angeles Police Department declined interviews on what they consider a closed case.Schrade believes Sirhan shot him and the others
who were wounded but that he did not kill Kennedy
Since 1974, Schrade has led the crusade to try to persuade authorities - the police, prosecutors, the feds, anyone - to reinvestigate the
case and identify the second gunman."Yes, he did shoot me
Yes, he shot four other people and aimed at Kennedy," Schrade, said in an interview at his Laurel Canyon home
"The important thing is he did not shoot Robert Kennedy
Why didn't they go after the second gunman They knew about him right away
They didn't want to know who it was
They wanted a quickie."- - -At trial, defense lawyer Grant Cooper made the decision not to contest the charge that Sirhan fired the fatal
shot and instead tried to persuade the jury not to impose the death penalty by arguing Sirhan had "diminished capacity" and didn't know what
It is a standard tactic by attorneys in death penalty cases, but Cooper, who died in 1990, was widely criticized for not investigating the
case before conceding guilt.Sirhan is now 74 and approaching 50 years behind bars
After California's courts abolished the death penalty in 1972, he was first made eligible for parole in 1986 but has been rejected
repeatedly.In 2016, Schrade spoke on Sirhan's behalf at his parole hearing and apologized for not coming forward sooner to advocate for
Sirhan's release and exoneration.California inmates are not permitted to give media interviews, and Sirhan did not respond to a letter from
But his brother, Munir Sirhan, said Sirhan still holds out hope of being released and that his defense team probably hurt his case more than
helped it.There's plenty of damning evidence against Sirhan
He confessed to the killing at trial, though he claims this was done on his attorney's instruction
He took hours of target practice with his pistol earlier in the day, and he took the gun into the Ambassador that night
He had been seen at a Kennedy speech at the Ambassador two days earlier. He had a newspaper clipping critical of Kennedy in his pocket and
had written "RFK must die" in notebooks at home, though he said he didn't remember doing that
And he waited in the pantry for about 30 minutes, according to witnesses who said he asked if Kennedy would be coming through there.But
questions about the case arose almost immediately in Los Angeles, resulting in hearings and reinvestigations as early as 1971 by the
district attorney, the police chief, the county board of supervisors and the county superior court
Many of them focused on the ballistics of the case, starting with Noguchi's finding that Kennedy had been shot from behind, which Sirhan's
lawyer didn't raise in his defense.In addition, lead crime scene investigator DeWayne Wolfer testified at trial that a bullet taken from
Kennedy's body and bullets from two of the wounded victims all matched Sirhan's gun.But other experts who examined the three bullets said
they had markings from different guns and different bullet manufacturers
An internal police document concluded that "Kennedy and Weisel bullets not fired from same gun," (Weisel was the wounded ABC news producer)
and "Kennedy bullet not fired from Sirhan's revolver."This prompted a Los Angeles judge in 1975 to convene a panel of seven forensic
experts, who examined the three bullets and refired Sirhan's gun
The panel said no match could be made between the three bullets, which appeared to be fired from the same gun, and Sirhan's revolver
They found Wolfer had done a sloppy job with the ballistics evidence and urged further investigation.In addition, witnesses said bullet
holes were found in the door frames of the Ambassador pantry, and photos showed investigators examining the holes in the hours after the
Between the three bullets that hit Kennedy and the bullets that hit the five wounded victims, Wolfer had accounted for all eight of Sirhan's
Bullets in the doors would indicate a second gun
Wolfer later said the holes and the metal inside were not bullets, and the door frames were destroyed after trial.Though Los Angeles
authorities had promised transparency in the case, the police and prosecutors refused to release their files until 1988, producing a flood
of new evidence for researchers.Among the material was an audiotape, first unearthed by CNN journalist Brad Johnson, which had been
inadvertently made by Polish journalist Stanislaw Pruszynski in the Ambassador ballroom, and turned over to police in 1969.Pruszynski's
microphone had been on the podium where Kennedy spoke, and TV footage shows him detaching it and moving toward the pantry as the shooting
happens.In 2005, audio engineer Philip Van Praag said the tape revealed that about 13 shots had been fired
He said he used technology similar to the ShotSpotter technology used by police to alert them to gunshots, and which differentiates gunshots
from firecrackers or other loud bangs.Van Praag said recently that different guns create different resonances and that he was able to
establish that two guns were fired, that they fired in different directions, and that some of the shot "impulses" were so close together
they couldn't have been fired by the same gun
He said he could not say "precisely" 13 shots but certainly more than the eight contained by Sirhan's gun."There were too many bullets,"
"You can't fire 13 shots out of an eight-shot gun."British author Mel Ayton wrote "The Forgotten Terrorist," which posits that Sirhan killed
Kennedy because he supported sending military firepower to Israel - the Sirhans were Christian Palestinians forced from their Jerusalem home
He said Van Praag had misinterpreted the Pruszynski tape and that other experts who examined it show only eight "spikes," one for each
Ayton also cited numerous eyewitnesses who said they heard at most eight shots.Ayton and investigative reporter Dan Moldea, who also wrote a
book about the assassination, argue that Sirhan's gun could have reached Kennedy's back
No witnesses saw the actual shots fired in the chaos of the pantry, and Moldea noted that Kennedy almost certainly turned and tried to
protect himself after the first shot, which some said was preceded by Sirhan yelling, "Kennedy, you son of a bitch!""What were Kennedy's
last words" Moldea asked during an interview
"'How's Paul' How would Kennedy know Paul had been injured if he had not been turned around
He turned around when Sirhan rushes towards him, yelling 'you son of a bitch Kennedy.' Kennedy's not going to just stand there
He turns his back defensively."Moldea theorized that Schrade fell forward into Kennedy, pinning him against a table and pushing him into the
muzzle of Sirhan's gun, enabling him to fire four contact shots into Kennedy
One shot went through his jacket without hitting Kennedy, one went into his back and stopped below his neck, one went through his armpit and
one went into his brain.But Robert F
doesn't find those theories persuasive
"It's not only that nobody saw that," Kennedy said
"The people that were closest to [Sirhan], the people that disarmed him all said he never got near my father."Schrade used an expletive to
describe Moldea's explanation and said he fell backward when he was shot above his forehead.Both Ayton and Moldea assisted the California
attorney general's office in contesting Sirhan's final appeal, and the government's legal briefs cited the investigative work of both
men.Moldea had initially been a believer in the second-gunman theory, but after interviewing numerous police officers, witnesses and Sirhan,
he concluded in his 1995 book, "The Killing of Robert F
Kennedy," that Sirhan acted alone
He cited as additional proof a comment Sirhan reportedly made to a defense investigator about Kennedy turning his head before Sirhan shot
him, a comment Sirhan strongly denied making.More recently, Sirhan's lawyers have explored whether he was hypnotized to begin shooting his
gun when given a certain cue, even hiring a renowned expert in hypnosis from Harvard to meet with Sirhan.Judge Wistrich was completely
dismissive of any suggestion of hypnosis
Schrade said the various theories of conspiracy and hypnotic programming are of little interest to him."I'm interested in finding out how
the prosecutor convicted Sirhan with no evidence, knowing there was a second gunman," Schrade said.It was Schrade who persuaded Robert F
"Once Schrade showed me the autopsy report," Kennedy said, "then I didn't feel like it was something I could just dismiss
Which is what I wanted to do."Kennedy called Sirhan's trial "really a penalty hearing
At a full trial, they would have litigated his guilt or innocence
I think it's unfortunate that the case never went to a full trial because that would have compelled the press and prosecutors to focus on
the glaring discrepancies in the narrative that Sirhan fired the shots that killed my father."- - -Kennedy is not afraid to express
Last year, he and actor Robert DeNiro held a press conference to argue that certain vaccines containing mercury are unsafe for some children
He said he is not opposed to all vaccines, but wants to make them safer.Three of his sisters - former Maryland lieutenant governor Kathleen
Kennedy Townsend, human rights activist Kerry Kennedy and filmmaker Rory Kennedy - declined to discuss the assassination or the case against
Kennedy understands why."I think that, for most of my family members," he said, "this is an issue that is still too painful to even talk
about."It's painful for him, too
Kennedy was asleep in his dorm at Georgetown Preparatory School in Bethesda, Maryland, on June 5, 1968, when a priest woke him and told
there was a car waiting outside to take him to the family home, Hickory Hill, in McLean, Virginia
The priest didn't say why.In his new memoir, "American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family," Kennedy said his mother's secretary was
"Jinx Hack told me my father had been shot, but I was still thinking he'd be okay
He was, after all, indestructible."Robert F
Kennedy Jr., his older sister Kathleen and brother Joe flew to Los Angeles on Vice President Hubert Humphrey's plane, Air Force Two.At Good
Samaritan Hospital, Kennedy wrote, his father's head was bandaged and his face was bruised
A priest had already delivered last rites
His mother was there."I sat down across the bed from her and took hold of his big wrestler's hand," he wrote
"I prayed and said goodbye to him, listening to the pumps that kept him breathing
Each of us children took turns sitting with him and praying opposite my mom."My dad died at 1:44 a.m., a few minutes after doctors removed
My brother Joe came into the ward where all the children were lying down and told us, 'He's gone.' "- - -Part of a continuing series about
events of the past that remain relevant.---Video: Sen
Robert Francis Kennedy (D-N.Y.) was shot and killed in 1968, while running for President
A convicted man is serving life in prison for the assassination, but 50 years later, doubts remain on who pulled the trigger.(Joyce Koh/The
Washington Post) (This story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
