COALINGA, Calif., March 2 (UPI) -- A California parole board Wednesday denied a request for parole for Sirhan Sirhan, the confessed killer of New York U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy in 1968.
It was the 14th time Sirhan's request for parole has been denied. He has served 42 years of a life sentence for the assassination of Kennedy in Los Angeles, following Kennedy's victory in the California Democratic presidential primary.
A lawyer for Sirhan said he planned to present evidence at the hearing that Sirhan did not act alone, ABC News reported.
"There is no question he was hypno-programmed," Sirhan lawyer William F. Pepper told ABCNews.com. "He was set up. He was used. He was manipulated."
Pepper was representing Sirhan for the first time at a parole hearing.
A gun was wrestled from Sirhan's hand after Kennedy was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel.
Pepper argues, "Ten independent witnesses say Sirhan was always in front of Bobby, never behind him, but the autopsy says Bobby was shot at close range from behind the right ear."
Pepper told ABC he thinks he knows who ordered Sirhan to shoot Kennedy, but won't say who it is -- at least not yet. But ABC said a defiant Sirhan at his 1969 trial confessed to the shooting and said he had committed it "with 20 years of malice aforethought."
