Jedi Priestess
Thu Dec 2, 7:45 PM ET
Add to My Yahoo! U.S. National - Reuters
By Arthur Spiegelman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The lawyer for Robert Kennedy's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, has gone to court to stop the demolition of the hotel where the late senator was shot dead, saying that there is evidence in its walls that can prove his client innocent.
Photo
Reuters Photo
Attorney Lawrence Teeter claims the 60-year-old Sirhan was set up as a dupe in the 1968 assassination, despite shooting at Kennedy in front of witnesses.
Sirhan is serving a life sentence for the crime.
Teeter filed suit this week in Los Angeles Superior Court to stop the city's school board from demolishing the Ambassador Hotel to build a school on the site.
The Los Angeles Unified School Board's general counsel, Kevin Reed, said on Thursday he was baffled by the suit as Sirhan admitted his guilt.
The suit said that bullet holes in the walls and ceiling where Kennedy was killed on June 5, 1968, prove that more than one gun was used to shoot the New York senator.
Teeter wants the hotel to remain standing so that an acoustical reenactment of the crime can take place. He argues that modern technology can prove how many shots were fired.
"Mr Teeter is looking for us to allow him to go into the hotel and reenact the shooting so that new acoustical tests can be made to determine if more than one gun was fired. But this would be 35 years after the event and years after his client admitted his guilt in court," Reed said.
"This is just silly," he added.
Teeter admits that his client was wrestled to the ground by witnesses at the scene of the killing after he started firing a gun at the senator. But he claims that autopsies show that the senator was shot at from behind while his client was in front of the senator in a hotel pantry.
Teeter said his client was hypnotized and programed to go to the scene, while others carried out the killing. Sirhan has said he has no memory of the killing.
At the time of his arrest, the Palestinian immigrant shouted to onlookers: "I did it for my people."
Robert Kennedy's family has called for the hotel to be ripped down and to have a school built in its place, saying that would be a fitting memorial to his memory.
Joining Teeter in the suit are the Assassination Archives and Research Center and the newly-formed Committee to Preserve Assassination Sites.
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Add to My Yahoo! U.S. National - Reuters
By Arthur Spiegelman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The lawyer for Robert Kennedy's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, has gone to court to stop the demolition of the hotel where the late senator was shot dead, saying that there is evidence in its walls that can prove his client innocent.
Photo
Reuters Photo
Attorney Lawrence Teeter claims the 60-year-old Sirhan was set up as a dupe in the 1968 assassination, despite shooting at Kennedy in front of witnesses.
Sirhan is serving a life sentence for the crime.
Teeter filed suit this week in Los Angeles Superior Court to stop the city's school board from demolishing the Ambassador Hotel to build a school on the site.
The Los Angeles Unified School Board's general counsel, Kevin Reed, said on Thursday he was baffled by the suit as Sirhan admitted his guilt.
The suit said that bullet holes in the walls and ceiling where Kennedy was killed on June 5, 1968, prove that more than one gun was used to shoot the New York senator.
Teeter wants the hotel to remain standing so that an acoustical reenactment of the crime can take place. He argues that modern technology can prove how many shots were fired.
"Mr Teeter is looking for us to allow him to go into the hotel and reenact the shooting so that new acoustical tests can be made to determine if more than one gun was fired. But this would be 35 years after the event and years after his client admitted his guilt in court," Reed said.
"This is just silly," he added.
Teeter admits that his client was wrestled to the ground by witnesses at the scene of the killing after he started firing a gun at the senator. But he claims that autopsies show that the senator was shot at from behind while his client was in front of the senator in a hotel pantry.
Teeter said his client was hypnotized and programed to go to the scene, while others carried out the killing. Sirhan has said he has no memory of the killing.
At the time of his arrest, the Palestinian immigrant shouted to onlookers: "I did it for my people."
Robert Kennedy's family has called for the hotel to be ripped down and to have a school built in its place, saying that would be a fitting memorial to his memory.
Joining Teeter in the suit are the Assassination Archives and Research Center and the newly-formed Committee to Preserve Assassination Sites.
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