New information about Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian man serving a life sentence for the murder of Robert F. Kennedy, has entered public knowledge as the US National Archives has released thousands of pages of records related to the assassination.
The National Archives released over 10,000 pages of records in connection with Kennedy's killing, according to details on its website on Friday. The move is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to declassify information about the assassinations of a number of high-profile Americans.
"Lifting the veil on the RFK papers is a necessary step toward restoring trust in American government," US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the senator's son, said in a statement.
The motive
Among the many documents was a note written by Sirhan, who was 24 at the time of the killing, which said the senator “must be disposed of like his brother was” five years prior. “RFK must die,” he wrote over and over in a diary later discovered.
While Sirhan is Palestinian, the attack came after he pledged allegiance to communist Russia and China. Still, the now-81-year-old admitted that the killing was motivated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Kennedy was selected for his support during Israel’s Six-Day War in 1967.