The Palestinian immigrant convicted of assassinating US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy 35 years ago is making a fresh bid to have his case retried, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
Sirhan Sirhan (59) has filed a motion to shift his petition for a fresh trial from Los Angeles to Fresno, California, claiming his case is subject to undue influence in the city where Kennedy was killed.
”We have filed a motion to transfer Sirhan’s federal habeas corpus case out of Los Angeles,” his lawyer Lawrence Teeter said.
Teeter made the move, which comes after repeated denials of Sirhan’s parole requests, alleging that it was unfair that several Los Angeles judges were subordinate to a judge who was once a prosecutor in Sirhan’s 1968 case.
Sirhan was convicted after pleading guilty to killing Kennedy by shooting him at close range on June 5 1968.
But Teeter said Sirhan had been made to point a handgun at Kennedy after being hypnotised by powerful forces that had hatched an elaborate plot to kill the brother of murdered ex-president John F Kennedy.
He claims that the bullets fired by Sirhan did not hit Kennedy and that the fatal shots came from behind and below him while Sirhan was in front of Kennedy.
Teeter says he has uncovered information in documents released from California’s state archives 20 years after the assassination that stunned the world, which prove Sirhan was framed with the help of the authorities.
The US Supreme Court in January rejected Sirhan’s appeal to overturn his conviction; an appeal based on the claim that Grant Cooper, at the time his lead defence lawyer, was engaged in a secret arrangement with the government to ensure he was convicted.
Kennedy (42) was seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, when he was gunned down at close range after having been declared the winner in the California primary. – Sapa-AFP