Sirhan Sirhan Biography

At about 12:15 am on June 5, 1968, Sirhan Sirhan shot presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Kennedy, who was leaving a campaign rally, was mortally wounded and died the next day. (Kennedy’s death came just two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King by James Earl Ray.) Sirhan was an Arab who had emigrated to the United States in the 1950s and was reportedly disturbed by Kennedy’s pro-Israel positions. After a 1969 trial lasting nearly four months, Sirhan was convicted and sentenced to death. That sentence was commuted to life in prison and Sirhan has been in prison in California ever since; his repeated applications for parole have been denied.