Talk:Sirhan Sirhan

Addition for hypnosis

While it may stink of a conspiracy theory, I think there should be a segment on the argument that people have that Sirhan Sirhan was a catspaw, and had been hypnotized into performing the assassination. Considering JFK has a portion on his conspiracy theories, so long as the referenecs are added (most of which I think I have squirrled away somewhere), I'd like to write a portion on RFK's —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.64.2.76 (talk) 17:44, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I concur, especially in light of the CIA MK Ultra and similar programs. The coincidence of both Kennedys being murdered also deserves mention especially in light of indications of LBJ's and CIA involvement in the murder of JFK. And conspiracy is not a dirty word. Evil men has just tried to make you ashamed of using the word so they can do their deeds without question. There have been enough conspiracies that have been exposed and generally accepted by even the most obtuse that there is no merit to categorical denial of the mere concept of political conspiracy, especially in USA. But I fear there is a significant crowd of mindless idiots who fear anything that requires thought and will delete any mention of conspiracy with any amount of desperate justification. 85.83.19.103 (talk) 21:45, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

YO

the article has his occupation listed as "assasin". I'm pretty sure this is wrong. He murdered someone once as far as i know

You're quite right, I've removed the reference. He only killed once, and he did it for personal reasons rather than professional ones. It clearly isn't his occupation.

POV

Did my damndest to clean up the POV mess in this article... --Fluppy 11:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

An event mentioned in this article is a

SBS should never get parole, in fact he should only be allowed parole when RFK is given his life back!

Meself, I feel sorry for SBS, since he was obviously Manchurianed. According to the ballistic evidence, he killed.

Can we have sources for the ballistics claims, please? Police report? Sirhan's statements? Other? (UTC) Deputy District Attorney John Howard, who had interrogated Sirhan two hours after the crime and stayed with the case all along, opened up with this stunning testimony: “The gun was an eight-shot revolver and there were six casings inside, which indicated that there had been six bullets fireda total of eleven ) bullet holes were found to be in the walls and people Of course a single bullet can make multiple holes. The LAPD claimed to know how eight bullets did it all but then the DDA testified to six shells. Also note that coroner Noguchi refuses to say SBS killed RFK, because SBS was never close enough to leave powder burns and couldn't cause the wounds found from where he was. Somewhere there's mention that the intact slug from RFK didn't match SBS' gun and was never tested against the others in the room. Anyhow, it seems the LAPD was even worse handling RFK evidence than for OJS; check the handling of the door jamb that probably showed two more holes to account for

Oh yeah, there's Sprague, which IMO is a notch or two higher in credibility than Shannon: ‘The ballroom microphones, including ABC's, picked up the sound of only three shots above the crowd noise. Since Sirhan fired eight shots, or certainly more than three, and since Los Angeles police tests proved that Sirhan's gun could not be heard in the position of the microphones in the ballroom, the ABC film and soundtrack is important evidence of three other shots.’[1]

Evidence of additional bullets surfaced nearly immediately...an AP photo two police officers pointing at something in the center frame of the swinging doors that led into the pantry...Bugliosi identified the two officers as Sgt. Charles Wright and Sgt. Robert Rozzi were sure that what they observed was...a hole containing a bullet...[which] would have been the ninth bullet, since seven bullets had been recovered from victim wounds and the eighth was to have disappeared into the ceiling (necessary to account for acknowledged holes in the ceiling a Chicago Tribune article authored by Robert Weidrich [who] had evidently been in the pantry as the doorjamb was being removed the molding bore the scars of a crime-laboratory technician's probe as it had removed corroborating FBI evidence skipped]...There is no way to account for these holes using the existing victim wounds. Two bullet holes in the doorframe would make 10 bullets overall at a minimum...[Patrusky statement skipped]&rsquo

What's with that first external link given in this article, to the Pat Shannan site? The article is rather shoddy (I thought at first it had been penned by a non-native speaker fairly skilled in the language but not in our culture, since it refers to the "FIB (Federal Investigation Bureau)" and more than a couple of the connections are bordering on the ridiculous (George Wallace was stealing votes from Republicans and could've thrown the '72 election into the House? not to mention that the entire thing seems to beg the question on the assassination's very nation, namely in that it assumes there must have been a conspiracy and then sets out to prove it. Can anyone double-check this for me and agree/disagree on the article? If it really is that crappy, we should drop the link.

---

This page is insane. Not only does it give no creedence to the fact that Sirhan Sirhan may have ACTUALLY killed Bobby Kennedy, it also ended by telling people that he had escaped and run amok in Israel. Much to the chagrin of whoever was stupid enough to write that, other people in the world have the name Sirhan Sirhan. Now, here comes my problem. While I may not be a complete believer in the claim that he did kill Bobby Kennedy, could we please put some information as to why anyone would suspect such an innocent man of such a thing? I myself am having problems as the entire internet appears to be against the idea wholeheartedly. Alright. The page was better, but now it's been demolished again by conspiracy goons. Does anyone else notice that the page starts with an emphatic statment that Sirhan Sirhan killed Kennedy but then gives all evidence to the contrary? I've had a hard time finding material, so again I call out to you beautiful people to help fix this page.--TheGrza 04:44, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

Why is the word "unconstitutional" put in quotes in the text? The quotes should be dropped, IMHO, unless someone can come up with a very good reason to keep them.

I am a kid no older then 10 and I want to know whet truely happened at that shoot out? I want to be in the law when I get older so if someone could really tell I would print it out on my computer and share it with a class or teacher. User: Congress Woman

I take it the Shannan link is the one that was just removed. For those who may be thinking of restoring it, the site it linked to no longer exists. Jobu 12:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Request for expansion

If you wish to make a request for expansion, please note it on the requests for expansion page or at least give an indication here on the talk page of what you feel needs elaboration. Palmiro | Talk 22:31, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi! Some areas that need work include: reference to "the 'RFK must die' diary entries" before any mention of a diary, the reference to hypnosis without a source (it's an unusual claim without much legal weight), and the only offsite reference is to http://www.crimelibrary.com which seems to play up conspiracy theories.

some idiot vandalized this page so im reverting it back to an older page that from a quick glance seems to be fine

Thank you for your alertness. gidonb 21:36, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Parole Granted

Sirhan Sirhan is getting parole, after his death penalty was commuted years ago. He is another Middle-East nut who needed to never show up in the United States.

He's not getting parole, it was denied. Although he's getting parole HEARINGS, it is unlikely he'll ever be paroled.

yeah and John Hinckley was another rich white kid nut who was as bad as Sirhan Sirhan, so shove it you racist clod. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.119.239.11 (talk) 09:19, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I think someone would kill him if he was let out on Parole. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.140.130.69 (talk) 23:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Sirhan will be paroled the same day Charles Manson is. Which is to say, never. 65.13.220.212 (talk) 21:28, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

wrong lawyer listed

Attempts of Sirhan's lawyer, Lawrence Teeter

Teeter was not his lawyer for the first trial. Teeter became his lawyer while he was in prison, many years after the trial

If only one book is listed as the source for this article, perhaps this article should more rightly be considered a review for that book.

I plan to add info and fix some of this to this article

Wmb1957 21:14, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

http://texts.cdlib.org/view;jsessionid=DMYavKpnhk5l6OMd?docId=tf387002h3&chunk.id=c02-1.3.4.6.3 http://www.oocities.com/verisimus101/rfk/autopsy.htm Dr. Thomas Noguchi: July 28, 1971.

LA County Coroner. Noguchi describes RFK's wounds and concludes that muzzle distance of gun likely one inch from RFK's right ear. Says assailant was not face to face. http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~dlewis/photo.htm

http://www-cgi.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/analysis/back.time/9606/10/ An interesting related article TIME, June 14, 1968

The family, which had Jordanian nationality, qualified nonetheless for expense-free passage to the U.S. under a limited refugee-admission program sponsored by the United Nations Relief and Welfare Agency and the World Council of Churches. Soon after reaching the U.S. in January 1957, the parents separated. The father returned to Jordan, settled alone in his ancestral village of Taiyiba and became prosperous enough from his olive groves to revisit the U.S. twice. His five sons and their mother Mary all live now in the Los Angeles area.

Wmb1957 03:17, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

If his true lawyers at the time of his first trial are a point of interest, some of the most prominent were Emile Zola Berman, Russell E. Parsons, and Dr. Bernard L. Diamond. CheshiresMasquerade (talk) 22:52, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

urls

portion of taped lie detector test taped interview - Sandy Serrano - witness - campaign worker http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/serrano.html

has comments and transcript of the above interview http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/assassins/kennedy/6.html

scan of actual LAPD teletype that announced arrest of Sirhan Sirhan http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/SIRHAN.gif

Draft of autopsy report http://www.thesmokinggun.com/coroner/rfkaut1.html

incorrect statement

In the 1990's, Sirhan would propose the theory that he had been brainwashed, which some conspiracy theorists attribute to the CIA's MK-Ultra program.

This url mentions hypnois in regard to his original request at this 1969 trial.

http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1969-3/1969-03-24-NBC-12.html

Abstract :Los Angeles, California) Sirhan remembers nothing between pouring coffee for girl and being choked, after killing. Dr. Bernard Diamond hypnotized Sirhan. Sirhan had 4 drinks, took gun to hotel, walked through alcove and saw Senator Robert F. Kennedy's entourage come in kitchen. During trance acted out shooting. Diamond feels tale true. Defense says Sirhan acted under hypnotic trance induced by mirrors in hotel alcove. REPORTER: Jack Perkins Artist: Gene Widhoff

Wmb1957 13:03, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Terrorist demands

In several plane hijackings and terrorist incidents in the 1970's (and maybe early 1980s), one of the demands was the freeing of Sirhan Sirhan... this should probably be mentioned in the article. AnonMoos 14:42, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

"Conspiracy theorists"

I've removed or reworked references to conspiracy theorists because calling someone a conspiracy theorist is tantamount to declaring their views false. I hope the more neutral wording is neutral enough to keep everybody happy.

I also tried to reference the website of Lawrence Teeter, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. So I have had to use a second-hand source for his arguments. However Teeter's words as published on that website do accord with the arguments on his own site as far as I can remember them. Ireneshusband 14:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

According to http://www.answers.com/topic/deaths-in-july-2005 , Lawrence Teeter died on July 31, 2005. This may explain the lack of a current website. Jobu 08:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Sources/Further Reading

I've added the 1993 version of the Turner/Christian book as a source; I'll be adding material from it in the near future. I'd erroneously placed it in the Further Reading section at first, which is why there are several quick edits. Jobu 09:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Start again

This article needs to be restarted and locked.

Grant Cooper

The article states that Grant Cooper, Sirhan's first defense lawyer, may have been "compromised by a conflict of interest" in Sirhan's initial trial, but does not appear to verify the nature of that conflict of interest. --Delong71487 06:05, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

RFK Grave?

Why is Robert Kennedy's grave at Arlington being used in this article? What factual bearing does it have? And if it has any, does it outweigh the emotional bias it may garner? -- Switchfoot 01:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

• Pretty obvious: He was shot, killed and that is where he is interred. Why not have it in there? BobCubTAC (talk) 23:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

trivia?

I changed "The lead prosecutor in the case was Lynn "Buck" Compton, WWII veteran of the 101st Airborne Divisions 506th PIR, E Company, of Band of Brothers fame" to "The lead prosecutor in the case was Lynn "Buck" Compton." Can someone tell me why we should put back in the (to me) trivia about the lawyer? RJFJR 17:46, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

biased, unsourced

This statement was included in the personal information section:

"this Baptist connection to the extreme Republican right that forces one to wonder if he wasn't in fact a pawn for Oil interests and the Republican party's inability to escape the complexity of the self serving business minded military industrial complex that was also behind bothe World Trade Center attacks in New York via the same Op-Intel tactics."

This is unsourced and false. It should be removed. --71.192.88.79 12:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Someone does not know basic math!

> Kennedy was shot three times, with a fourth bullet passing through his jacket, and died 26 hours later. Five other persons in the pantry also were shot, but all five recovered <

This is impossible, as there isn't absolutely any nine-shooter revolver in the world as the ammo drum cannot be made large enough for that in handgun format! In fact there are only two brands of eight-shooter revolvers in .22 caliber worldwide.

RFK was killed by his own bodyguard from behind and Sirhan was just a cover-up. All independent investigations to day came to this same conclusion. 82.131.210.162 08:42, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

A single bullet can hit more than one person. -Atamasama 21:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Yet ANOTHER magic bullet! Two Kennedy assassinations and each had a magic bullet. Seems fishy to me. And I hear Jack Ruby and Sir Han used to vacation together off the coast of Cuba back in the late 50s. Hmmm... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.233.178.253 (talk) 19:34, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that a single bullet cannot hit more than one person? john k (talk) 15:48, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

There are a numerous 9 & 10 shot revolver models readily available but the firearm evidence presented at the trial was an 8 shot 22 caliber Ivers-Johnson Cadet model 55A. So 8 bullets (if fired until the revolver was empty) hit 6 people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.191.160.247 (talk) 12:12, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

There should be some short sourced reference to the conspiracy theory that someone else shot RFK.--Jack Upland 07:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

This was already in the article itself: http://www.nbc30.com/news/15712020/detail.html Seems pretty cut and dry to me - I don't think we'll ever really know what the true story is, so at this point "theories" are all we have. That link is kind of a shocker. 144.89.186.134 (talk) 00:59, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

For all we know Sir Han may have shot Kennedy and his bodygaurds tried to shoot Sir Han and they shot other people there are as many theroys of who killed the Kennedys.Maybe the Mafia killed Bobby to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.140.130.69 (talk) 23:08, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Citizenship

Is Sirhan an American citizen?--Pharos 10:26, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Sirhan's Christian denomination

Sirhan was NOT raised Maronite Christian, but Greek Orthodox. His brother Munir continues to be devout Orthodox as well, and his family originally hails from Taybe, whose Christians are mainly Greek Orthodox. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.187.196.151 (talk) 18:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

israel

i seem to remember reading somewhere that the assasination was a few days after kennedy suggested/asked/approved of sending modern of the time fighter planes to israel. so the assasination would go with his palestinian/arab views. anyone know? Wvfd14 (talk) 16:50, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

RFK had stated several times during his candidacy that he was in favor of selling 50 fighter jets to Israel, a point he restated a speech several days before the assassination and which was broadcast in the Los Angeles area at that time. CheshiresMasquerade (talk) 22:55, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Motives

"Sirhan Sirhan was most certainly an arab terrorist,[citation needed] inspired by radical islam,[citation needed] hatred of America/the West/Israel,[citation needed] and believed that RFK was unfriendly to pan-Arabic objectives (restoration of the Sultanate and Sharia law throughout the Middle East).[citation needed] Some journalists[citation needed] claim that Sirhan had long dealt with anger over Israel's creation in 1948. Sirhan supposedly believed he was deliberately betrayed by Kennedy's support for Israel in the June 1967 Six-Day War,[citation needed] which had begun exactly one year before the assassination. However, the "RFK must die" diary entries started before Kennedy's support of Israel became public knowledge.[citation needed] After his arrest, these journals and diaries were discovered. Most of the entries were incoherent and repetitive, though a single entry obsessed over a desire to kill Kennedy. When confronted with this entry, Sirhan couldn't deny writing them, but rather expressed bafflement.[citation needed]"

This statement should be removed. It says he was inspired by radical islam, yet the same article states he is a christian. Plus there are no source citations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Heatsketch (talk • contribs) 22:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the first sentence is total nonsense, and I've removed it. The rest (which was written by a different person) seems mostly OK, though it still does need citations.--Pharos (talk) 22:21, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I tore out an entire paragraph of uncited, badly written crap in the 'Prosecution' page. Come on, people. Wikipedia's a huge place - put a link in noting that there's a LOT of controversy about this and make an entire page out of it. Or better yet, use the Robert F. Kennedy Assassination page, which is what it's there for.

No one likes being beaten over the head with an idea. This is an encyclopedia. Treat it like one. Fair, neutral tone. If you can't do it, put your ideas and statements in the discussion page and let someone else write it. ExLegeLibertas (talk) 11:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Update on RFK's Fatal Shot / POV check

I believe this section would benefit from a POV check and have added the appropriate template. Goodnewsfortheinsane (talk) 17:22, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Misleading

However, a diary entry, reading "RFK must die," which was found after the assassination, was shown to have been written before Kennedy's support of Israel became public knowledge.

The Crime Library article on the assassination says that Sirhan Sirhan wrote about killing Kennedy two days before a particular documentary that talked about his support for Israel aired in LA. There is, however, absolutely no indication that his "support for Israel" was not public knowledge long before May 20, 1968, and that's a pretty absurd claim. john k (talk) 15:47, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Incredibly absurd, how is this allowed to stand? Kennedy's support for Israel was well known. Can someone please change this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.6.173.150 (talk) 22:11, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Philip H. Melanson's book

Would be a good source for this article. [2] I'm rather surprised to see there is no mention of the the Manchurian Candidate thesis as one of the potential motives for the killing of RFK. There is a whole body of literature on the subject, and while some may claim WP:FRINGE, I think its rather more of a significant minority opinion that desrves inclusion per WP:NPOV. Are there any objections to beginning a section on this alternate explanation for Sirhan Sirhan's actions? Tiamut^talk 22:01, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be more appropriate at Robert F. Kennedy assassination?  Frank  |  talk  22:05, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Well it would be appropriate there, yes. But considering that Sirhan has been convicted for the assassination and considering that the article on William Joseph Bryan mentions that a book on the assassination fingered him as the hypnotist, I can't see why we wouldn't also mention something, anything, about it here. Tiamut^talk 22:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

It's also mentioned in our article on Project MKULTRA:

Lawrence Teeter, attorney for convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan, believed Sirhan was under the influence of hypnosis when he fired his weapon at Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Teeter linked the CIA's MK-ULTRA program to mind control techniques that he claimed were used to control Sirhan.

Shouldn't our article our Sirhan Sirhan mention what his lawyer thought? Tiamut^talk 22:28, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Other defense lawyers for Sirhan that have Wiki articles are Melvin Belli and William Francis Pepper (the latter being his current lawyer, and both are not mentioned here). Sirhan was sent to death row at San Quentin State Prison in 1969 which is also not mentioned here. We also don't mention anything about Allard K. Lowenstein and his calls to reopen the investigation into Kennedy's assasination because of the discrepancies between the ballistic evidence and eyewitness testimonies. Nor do we mention the famous woman in the polka dot dress. Our article cannot be very complete if it fails to reference these things and the others raised above in any way at all. Perhaps that's why its still rated C-class? Tiamut^talk 22:53, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

People v Anderson and subsequent US Supreme Court mention

It seems the people v anderson case did not decide that the death penalty violated the US 8th, but rather the similar language of the Cali constitution "cruel or unusual punishment". The article thus appears to be incorrect, if the previous is correct. Additionally, the later supreme court (US) case reinstating the death penalty didn't address these concerns at all, meerly removing the additional federal burden under the eigth. The state constitutional issue was, rather, resolved after the cali constitution was amended such that death was excluded from consideration as cruel or unusual under state law. I believe this is correct and should be changed, though the ultimate effect is the same, the specifics currently seem wrong.--24.29.232.2 (talk) 11:12, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The specifics aren't necessary to this article at all, so I've removed them. 83.70.165.173 (talk) 21:38, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, the general outline provided seems appropriate, I find those sort of things interesting. Given it relates to the incident for which the individual is most known, it seems directly relevant. Either way, I see the language appears to be the same. I've changed it to show the cruel or unusual punishment issue in the cali const. was the issue in anderson that gave him life, and removed the blip about the US Sup Ct decision, as that wasn't shown to be relevant. Further, since the US Constitutional issues aren't necessary to the article as far as I can see, I just removed the incorrect info regarding it rather than correcting it. (the us supreme court case didn't invalidate anderson's commutation of sirhan's sentence as previously suggested as the commutation was based on issues the supreme court didn't have jurisdiction to decide, and didn't decide--24.29.232.2 (talk) 21:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)).