WASHINGTON: About 10,000 pages of records related to the 1968 assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were released Friday, including handwritten notes by the gunman, who said the Democratic presidential candidate “must be disposed of” and acknowledged an obsession with killing him.
Many of the files had been made public previously, while others had not been digitized and sat for decades in federal government storage facilities. Their release continued the disclosure of historical investigation documents ordered by President Donald Trump.
Kennedy was fatally shot on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after giving a speech celebrating his victory in California’s presidential primary. His assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving life in prison.
The files included pictures of handwritten notes by Sirhan.
“RFK must be disposed of like his brother was,” read the writing on the outside of an empty envelope, referring to Kennedy’s older brother, President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963. The return address was from the district director of the Internal Revenue Service in Los Angeles.
The National Archives and Records Administration posted 229 files containing the pages to its public website.
The release comes a month after unredacted files related to the assassination of President Kennedy were disclosed. Those documents gave curious readers more details about Cold War-era covert US operations in other nations but did not initially lend credence to long-circulating conspiracy theories about who killed JFK.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of Robert Kennedy, commended the release.
“Lifting the veil on the RFK papers is a necessary step toward restoring trust in American government,” the health secretary said in a statement.
Documents include interviews with assassin’s acquaintances
The files surrounding Robert Kennedy’s assassination also included notes from interviews with people who knew Sirhan from a wide variety of contexts, such as classmates, neighbors and coworkers. While some described him as “a friendly, kind and generous person” others depicted a brooding and “impressionable” young man who felt strongly about his political convictions and briefly believed in mysticism.
According to the files, Sirhan told his garbage collector that he planned to kill Kennedy shortly after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. The sanitation worker, a Black man, said he planned to vote for Kennedy because he would help Black people.
“Well, I don’t agree. I am planning on shooting the son of a bitch,” Sirhan replied, the man told investigators.
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of “The Kennedy Half-Century,” said there have always been conspiracies surrounding Robert Kennedy’s assassination. He believes the rollout of documents Friday would be similar to the JFK documents released earlier this year.
He cautioned that a review needs to be done carefully and slowly, “just in case there is a hint in there or there is an anecdote” that could shed more light on the assassination.
“I hope there’s more information,” Sabato said. “I’m doubtful that there is, just as I said when the JFK documents were released.”
Some redactions remained in the documents posted online Friday, including names and dates of birth. Last month, the Trump administration came under criticism over unredacted personal information, including Social Security numbers, during the release of records surrounding President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
Trump, a Republican, has championed in the name of transparency the release of documents related to high-profile assassinations and investigations. But he has also been deeply suspicious for years of the government’s intelligence agencies. His administration’s release of once-hidden files opens the door for more public scrutiny of the operations and conclusions of institutions such as the CIA and the FBI.
Trump signed an executive order in January calling for the release of government documents related to the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and King, who were killed within two months of each other.
Lawyers for Kennedy’s killer have said for decades that he is unlikely to reoffend or pose a danger to society, and in 2021, a parole board deemed Sirhan suitable for release. But Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected the decision in 2022, keeping him in state prison. In 2023 , a different panel denied him release, saying he still lacks insight into what caused him to shoot Kennedy.
RFK still stands as a hero to American liberals
Kennedy remains an icon for liberals, who see him as a champion for human rights who also was committed to fighting poverty and racial and economic injustice. They often regard his assassination as the last in a series of major tragedies that put the US and its politics on a darker, more conservative path.
He was a sometimes divisive figure during his lifetime. Some critics thought he came late to opposing the Vietnam War, and he launched his campaign for president in 1968 only after the Democratic primary in New Hampshire exposed President Johnson’s political weakness.
Kennedy’s older brother appointed him US attorney general, and he remained a close aide to him until JFK’s assassination in Dallas. In 1964, he won a US Senate seat from New York and was seen as the heir to the family’s political legacy.
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10,000 pages of records about Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 assassination are released, on Trump’s order
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10,000 pages of records about Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 assassination are released, on Trump’s order
Nepal’s rapper-turned-mayor challenges ousted PM
Katmandu: Nepal’s rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah will go into a head-to-head election battle with the veteran prime minister he helped unseat, as he champions youth demands that toppled last year’s government.
The 35-year-old resigned last week as mayor of Katmandu to contest general elections, announcing Tuesday that he will directly challenge ousted prime minister KP Sharma Oli by running in the same constituency.
Nepal will hold general elections on March 5, the first since mass anti-corruption protests in September 2025 overthrew Oli, a 73-year-old Marxist leader and four-term prime minister.
“Contesting against a major figure... signals that I am not taking the easy way out,” Shah told AFP, ahead of his formal confirmation of candidacy.
“It demonstrates that, despite the problems or betrayals that have affected the country, we are moving toward addressing them,” he added.
Better known as Balen, the former mayor arrived for the interview at a Katmandu hotel dressed in black and wearing a traditional Nepali hat or “topi,” though he was without his trademark dark square sunglasses.
His hip-hop songs tackling corruption and inequality have drawn millions of views.
A civil engineer and rapper before joining politics, Shah stunned the political establishment in 2022 when he became the first independent candidate to be elected as Katmandu mayor.
He built a reputation as a sharp-tongued reformer, launching campaigns targeting tax evasion, traffic congestion, education and city waste.
Shah’s approach, however, drew criticism for heavy-handed enforcement and for communicating directly with his millions of social media followers rather than engaging with journalists.
“We made many processes that operated through informal arrangements transparent, through open procurement,” he said.
- ‘Ripple effect’ -
In December, Shah joined the centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), led by television host Rabi Lamichhane, 50.
RSP, which became parliament’s fourth-largest force in the last elections in 2022, challenged parties that had dominated Nepal since the end of its civil war in 2006.
If the RSP secures a parliamentary majority, Shah would become prime minister.
“We share the same ideology,” Shah said, describing a vision of “a liberal economic system with social justice,” including free education and health care for the poor.
Rather than contesting from his Katmandu base, Shah will challenge Oli in his stronghold of Jhapa-5, a largely rural district 300 kilometers (185 miles) southeast of Katmandu.
“This should not be perceived as an egoistic decision,” Shah said. “The ripple effect would simply be greater if I contest from Jhapa.”
The September 8-9 demonstrations were initially triggered by anger over a brief government ban on major social media platforms, with protesters gathered under a loose “Gen Z” banner.
But deeper grievances — economic stagnation and entrenched corruption — fueled the unrest in the country of 30 million, in which at least 77 people were killed.
- ‘Grow our economy’ -
Shah backed the protests while urging restraint, emerging as a central figure in the movement.
“Gen Z’s number one demand is good governance, because there is a high level of corruption in the country,” he said, adding that his party had drawn on protesters for support.
“The Gen Z protest has opened a door — 40 percent of our central committee members and proportional representatives are new faces who emerged from the September protest,” he said.
Young Nepalis are looking for leaders promising economic reform. The World Bank estimates 82 percent of Nepal’s workforce is in informal employment, with GDP per capita at $1,447 in 2024.
“We need to grow our economy,” Shah said, citing tourism, trade and skilled jobs as ways to stem the mass outflow of workers.
Landlocked Nepal, wedged between regional giants India and China, faces geopolitical pressures, but Shah sees an opportunity to make Nepal a trade hub.
“My approach is to maintain a natural relationship with both neighboring nations,” he said.
And while focused on politics, he said that music remains central to his identity.
“Music is a medium to express oneself,” he said. “I will continue it, even if I am elected as prime minister.”
The 35-year-old resigned last week as mayor of Katmandu to contest general elections, announcing Tuesday that he will directly challenge ousted prime minister KP Sharma Oli by running in the same constituency.
Nepal will hold general elections on March 5, the first since mass anti-corruption protests in September 2025 overthrew Oli, a 73-year-old Marxist leader and four-term prime minister.
“Contesting against a major figure... signals that I am not taking the easy way out,” Shah told AFP, ahead of his formal confirmation of candidacy.
“It demonstrates that, despite the problems or betrayals that have affected the country, we are moving toward addressing them,” he added.
Better known as Balen, the former mayor arrived for the interview at a Katmandu hotel dressed in black and wearing a traditional Nepali hat or “topi,” though he was without his trademark dark square sunglasses.
His hip-hop songs tackling corruption and inequality have drawn millions of views.
A civil engineer and rapper before joining politics, Shah stunned the political establishment in 2022 when he became the first independent candidate to be elected as Katmandu mayor.
He built a reputation as a sharp-tongued reformer, launching campaigns targeting tax evasion, traffic congestion, education and city waste.
Shah’s approach, however, drew criticism for heavy-handed enforcement and for communicating directly with his millions of social media followers rather than engaging with journalists.
“We made many processes that operated through informal arrangements transparent, through open procurement,” he said.
- ‘Ripple effect’ -
In December, Shah joined the centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), led by television host Rabi Lamichhane, 50.
RSP, which became parliament’s fourth-largest force in the last elections in 2022, challenged parties that had dominated Nepal since the end of its civil war in 2006.
If the RSP secures a parliamentary majority, Shah would become prime minister.
“We share the same ideology,” Shah said, describing a vision of “a liberal economic system with social justice,” including free education and health care for the poor.
Rather than contesting from his Katmandu base, Shah will challenge Oli in his stronghold of Jhapa-5, a largely rural district 300 kilometers (185 miles) southeast of Katmandu.
“This should not be perceived as an egoistic decision,” Shah said. “The ripple effect would simply be greater if I contest from Jhapa.”
The September 8-9 demonstrations were initially triggered by anger over a brief government ban on major social media platforms, with protesters gathered under a loose “Gen Z” banner.
But deeper grievances — economic stagnation and entrenched corruption — fueled the unrest in the country of 30 million, in which at least 77 people were killed.
- ‘Grow our economy’ -
Shah backed the protests while urging restraint, emerging as a central figure in the movement.
“Gen Z’s number one demand is good governance, because there is a high level of corruption in the country,” he said, adding that his party had drawn on protesters for support.
“The Gen Z protest has opened a door — 40 percent of our central committee members and proportional representatives are new faces who emerged from the September protest,” he said.
Young Nepalis are looking for leaders promising economic reform. The World Bank estimates 82 percent of Nepal’s workforce is in informal employment, with GDP per capita at $1,447 in 2024.
“We need to grow our economy,” Shah said, citing tourism, trade and skilled jobs as ways to stem the mass outflow of workers.
Landlocked Nepal, wedged between regional giants India and China, faces geopolitical pressures, but Shah sees an opportunity to make Nepal a trade hub.
“My approach is to maintain a natural relationship with both neighboring nations,” he said.
And while focused on politics, he said that music remains central to his identity.
“Music is a medium to express oneself,” he said. “I will continue it, even if I am elected as prime minister.”
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