Sirhan B. Sirhan, the convicted assassin of Robert F. Kennedy, will make a personal appearance before a California parole board for the first time in at least nine years on Wednesday, supported by two psychologists’ reports saying he no longer poses a threat to society, his attorney said.
And in what a prosecutor and Sirhan’s attorney say will be an extraordinary appearance, one of the surviving shooting victims in the 1968 assassination, retired TV journalist William Weisel, is expected to tell the parole panel that he won’t object to Sirhan’s release if the board OKs it.
Even so, the release of Sirhan, 66, now serving a life sentence, is a long shot, with only about 10% of California’s life-sentenced convicts being granted parole, said Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney David Dahle, who added he plans to oppose Sirhan’s release at Wednesday’s hearing.
Weisel, who shared with CNN his prepared statement to the parole board, said he was hit by a stray bullet in the abdomen “on that terrible evening” a quarter past midnight on June 5, 1968, after Kennedy had just won the California primary in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Now 73, Weisel, of Healdsburg, California, was an ABC News associate producer at the time of the shooting.
“I’m advised that two reputable psychologists, one representing the state of California and the other from Harvard University, have concluded, after examining him — Sirhan Sirhan — that if he is granted parole, he would not be a threat to himself and others and the community at large. If this is a fact and the board is inclined to grant him parole after him being in prison for nearly 43 years, I would not be opposed to the decision,” Weisel said in a telephone interview with CNN.
Dahle declined to comment on Weisel’s statement or on the psychologists’ reports to the parole board, but he said Weisel’s scheduled appearance would mark the first time during Sirhan’s imprisonment that a surviving witness voiced no objection to his possible parole — at least since 1970.
Prior to 1970, “there’s no record of the proceedings and I don’t know if anyone showed up,” Dahle said.
“It’s fairly unusual. It’s not common,” Dahle added with respect to victims attending a parole hearing and not objecting to the prisoner being released. “We don’t get many, at least in cases in Los Angeles County — where we get victims or victims’ next of kin coming to cases. It’s an expensive proposition.”
Wednesday will mark Sirhan’s 14th parole hearing, scheduled to be held in the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, California, which is 200 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
Members of the Kennedy family and their representatives didn’t return messages or e-mails seeking a comment.
Sirhan’s attorney, William Pepper, an international human rights attorney and a barrister with offices in New York and London, said he and Sirhan were “very grateful” for Weisel’s statement.
Sirhan, 63, is serving a life sentence for killing Kennedy and wounding five other persons in the kitchen pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles — the hotel was later razed and a public school now occupies the site. Sirhan was convicted of first-degree murder and five counts of assault with attempt to commit murder.
Michael Martinez, CNN
