Sirhan Sirhan

Sirhan Sirhan is the man that many people believe was solely responsible for the assassination of U.S senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Sirhan was born in Jerusalem (which was part of Palestine at the time) in 1944 to Palestinian parents Bishara Sirhan and Mary Muzher. At the age of 12, his family moved to the United States in order to escape the Israeli bombings in Beirut - first living in New York City and then eventually settling in California. Sirhan worked a number of odd jobs in and around the Pasadena area, including one as a stock boy for a health food store and another as a stable boy at the Santa Anita racetrack. On June 5, 1968, it is generally believed that Sirhan shot Kennedy three times with a .22 revolver in the main ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel, just moments after Kennedy had given a victory speech to his supporters following his win in the California Democratic primary. According to Sirhan, the motivation behind the assassination was Kennedy's support of Israel during the Six-Day War and his overall pro-Israeli stance.

While conspiracy theorists have argued for decades as to whether or not Sirhan was actually the assassin (due to a wealth of evidence to the contrary), it wasn't until 2008 that forensics experts concluded that Sirhan could not have carried out the assassination alone and that another gunmen must have been involved. Using an audio recording of the assassination and advanced forensics techniques, researchers concluded that the bullet that killed Kennedy must have come from behind him (while Sirhan was actually in front of him at the time). They also noted that at least 13 shots were fired - even though the gun Sirhan used only had room for 8 bullets. Sirhan Sirhan has been eligible for parole 13 times (as of 2008) and has been denied each time.

• Wikipedia: Robert F. Kennedy Assassination

• Wikisource: Sirhan Sirhan's diary

• Online Archive of California: Inventory of the LAPD Records of the RFK Assassination Investigation

• BBC: On This Day: June 5, 1968 | Death of Robert Kennedy | Who Shot Bobby Kennedy?

• The Guardian: "Did the CIA kill Bobby Kennedy?" (2006)

• FrontPage Magazine: "Did the PLO kill RFK?" (2005)

• Crime Magazine: The Robert Kennedy Assassination

• JFK Lancer: The Case for Conspiracy