Running on an anti-war ticket, Kennedy had just won the California Democratic primary and looked set to challenge Nixon for the White House. As he walked through the hotel pantry, shots rang out and he fell to the floor, fatally wounded by a bullet to the brain, fired from an inch behind his right ear.
24-year old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan was convicted as the 'lone assassin' but witnesses placed Sirhan several feet in front of Kennedy and for forty years, he has never been able to remember the shooting. Defense psychiatrists concluded Sirhan was in a hypnotic state at the time of the shooting and extra bullet holes in the pantry suggested a second gunman was involved. A girl in a polka-dot dress seen with Sirhan in the pantry later fled the scene, exclaiming 'We shot him! We shot Kennedy!' The LAPD couldn't find her, so they bullied key witnesses into retractions and said the girl didn't exist.
Today, Sirhan is America's last surviving political assassin, locked away in the same California prison as Charles Manson for a crime he can't remember committing. Since 9-11, he has been cast as the first Arab terrorist but leading psychiatrists believe he was a 'Manchurian Candidate', hypnotically programmed to kill Kennedy. The film's release comes as a newly-discovered audio recording of the shooting proves there was a second shooter in the Ambassador Hotel pantry and that Sirhan Sirhan did not kill Robert Kennedy, prompting new calls for the case to be reopened.
For a full listing of ICA screenings, please visit www.ica.org.uk
Director Shane O'Sullivan will be doing a Q&A after the 6:15 screening on the opening night and you can find more information about the film at www.rfkmustdie.co.uk
"Dizzyingly informative conspiracy movie examining the murder of JFK's brother...
provides abundant evidence questioning whether Sirhan was acting alone
or if he was just another patsy...in this meticulously detailed examination of that fateful night"
-Time Out (Critic's Choice)
"An interesting look into the tragic death of a beloved figure [that] also succeeds as a thought-provoking thriller..."
-Independent Film Quarterly
"An exhaustive investigation into the death of one of America’s most beloved politicians...
always provocative and often disturbing..."
-Variety critic EMANUEL LEVY
Comments
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O'Sullivan's bogus conspiracy
06.06.2008 07:54
http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/
http://hnn.us/articles/50532.html
Mel Ayton
Mel Ayton
e-mail: MELAYTON@talktalk.net