Sirhan Denied Parole; His Next Hearing to Be Delayed

SOLEDAD, Calif. —  Sirhan B. Sirhan’s latest bid for parole was rejected Thursday despite his attorney’s plea that the convicted assassin of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy be deported so that he could “vanish into the woodwork somewhere in the Middle East.”

Furthermore, the three-member Board of Prison Terms, unanimously declaring that Kennedy’s murder “was a total affront to the American people and our electoral form of government,” decided that instead of coming up for reconsideration next year, Sirhan’s next parole hearing would not be until March, 1989.

They suggested that he spend the time undergoing extended psychiatric testing and vocational training, that he be prepared to show valid job offers next time around and that he go through an Alcoholics Anonymous course, even though Sirhan has said he has not taken a drink since the four highballs he consumed on the night of Kennedy’s death.

Sirhan, now 44, and obviously frustrated after 18 years of prison life, told reporters after a three-hour hearing at the state prison here: “I felt dumbfounded. Speechless! I was shocked that they would deny it for two years.”

A Palestinian with a father living on the West Bank and a mother and two brothers residing in Pasadena, Sirhan attempted to convince the board that he should be deported.

“The bottom line,” he said, “is why don’t you just deport me and get me out of your hair?”

On this note, his attorney, Luke McKissack, referred to this year’s arrests of eight aliens in Los Angeles on subversion charges under the McCarran-Walter Act--all of whom face deportation for alleged membership in a Marxist faction of the Palestine Liberation organization.

Urging that McCarran-Walter be used to allow Sirhan to leave the country, McKissack said there “obviously . . . can’t be a more anti-American act than killing an American senator.”

Board member Maureen O’Connell wondered whether Sirhan, once paroled, might be hunted by vigilantes, as has been the case with convicted rapist-mutilator Lawrence Singleton. But McKissack said he believes that public anger over the Kennedy assassination “has subsided” and that Sirhan’s life would not be in danger if he had to face a period of parole in California.

Irritated by O’Connell’s question, Sirhan scoffed, “I don’t cut off little girls’ arms!”

It was Sirhan’s ninth appearance before a state parole board and his fourth denial since a release date was rescinded by the courts in 1982.

Sirhan has never denied firing the shots that killed Kennedy at 12:15 a.m. on June 5, 1968, in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, after Kennedy’s victory speech after winning the California Democratic presidential primary election.

Sirhan was convicted on April 17, 1969, of first-degree murder.

In 1972, the California Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction, but reduced his death sentence to life imprisonment after overturning the death penalty earlier that year.

Leaving the hearing, Sirhan was asked if he thought he would ever be free.

“The American system of justice,” he said, “will let me go home in a coffin. I’m abandoning hope.”