Sirhan Sirhan during a Board of Parole Suitability Hearing in 2011 at the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, California. Picture: AP Photo/Ben Margot Source: AP
SENATOR Robert F. Kennedy's killer was moved to a new prison in California on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Kennedy's brother, President John F. Kennedy.
Sirhan Sirhan, 69, was transferred on Friday from the Corcoran prison in central California to the Richard J. Donovan prison in San Diego, more than 250 miles south,The Washington Times reports.
The move was routine, said Deborah Hoffman, a spokeswoman with the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
"This transfer had been planned, and the date of the move is simply an unfortunate coincidence. On any given day, inmates are moved from institution to institution for a variety of reasons," she told U-T San Diego.
Robert F. Kennedy, far right, with Jacqueline Kennedy (front, centre) Robert P. Fitzgerald, and mother Rose Kennedy at St. Matthew's Cathedral after the funeral mass for President John F. Kennedy in Washington in November 1963. Picture: AP Photo/William C. Allen Source: AP
Sirhan shot Robert F. Kennedy on June 5, 1968, as he was leaving the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
The senator had claimed victory in California's Democratic presidential primary just moments earlier.
Sirhan was sentenced to death, but it was commuted to life in prison in 1972. He has since spent time in several California prisons.
Sirhan was denied parole in 2011 at a hearing where he said he had no memory of shooting Kennedy.
His lawyers have claimed that Sirhan was framed in a conspiracy.
They contend that he was programmed through hypnosis to fire shots as a diversion for the real killer.
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