Six of Robert F. Kennedy’s children issued a statement Saturday decrying a California parole board’s decision to recommend their father’s assassin for parole, saying they “adamantly oppose” his potential parole and release.
In a statement, published on Politico, the six say, “We are devastated that the man who murdered our father has been recommended for parole. He took our father from our family and he took him from America. … We are in disbelief that this man would be recommended for release.”
The six children who signed the statement: former Democratic Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II, Christopher G. Kennedy, Courtney Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Maxwell T. Kennedy and Rory Kennedy. The children state that the basis for this parole “ignores the standards for parole of a confessed, first-degree murderer in the state of California.”
A two-person California parole board recommended Jordanian citizen Sirhan Sirhan after 53 years in prison for the 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy during a 1968 campaign stop at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles during the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Two of RFK’s children, Douglas and Robert Jr., submitted statements urging for Sirhan’s release. Douglas, a journalist, was one year old when his father was killed. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a noted criminal reform advocate.