(CN) - Sirhan Sirhan's attorneys claim they have new "exculpatory evidence of actual innocence" of Bobby Kennedy's assassin: that Sirhan was "hypno-programmed" by government operatives, that there was more than one gunman in the Ambassador Hotel and that the fatal bullet was switched in evidence at his trial.
The 62-page "Reply Brief on the Issue of Actual Innocence," filed in Los Angeles Federal Court, seeks to "set aside the original 1969 verdict and sentence and grant petitioner his freedom or order a new trial."
Sirhan, 67, has spent 42 years in San Quentin. He claims he has no memory of shooting Kennedy.
His attorneys claim Sirhan was subjected to hypnosis and mind control by shadowy government entities, setting him up to be a "Manchurian Candidate," programmed to shoot Kennedy - a claim Sirhan's attorneys did not pursue in 1969.
During his trial, the jury heard evidence from experts on both sides that Sirhan was suffering from "paranoid schizophrenia," according to the new appeal.
The brief states that new evidence from two experts casts reasonable doubt on Sirhan's schizophrenia diagnosis, opening the door to the idea that Sirhan was a patsy to divert attention from the real assassins.
The brief states: "Robert Kaiser, the journalist closest to the defense team, believed that the petitioner was hypno-programmed and so did Dr. Simson-Kallas, a psychologist at San Quentin prison when the petitioner arrived there. Dr. Simson-Kallas was asked to interview the petitioner by the supervising psychiatrist because the supervising psychiatrist did not find any evidence to support both the defense and prosecution experts' opinions of paranoid schizophrenia in the petitioner. ... After many hours of interviewing the petitioner, Dr. Simson-Kallas not only concluded that there was no evidence whatsoever for schizophrenia, he also concluded that the Petitioner might have been programmed," according to the Reply Brief.
Sirhan's attorneys - William Pepper of New York City and Laurie Dusek of Rego Park, N.Y. - claim, "Dr. Simson-Kallas was the only psychologist that had no affiliation to either the defense or the prosecution, who interviewed/examined the petitioner around the time of the crime".
The attorneys claim that "Respondent refuses to acknowledge that hypno programming/mind control is not fiction but reality and has been used for years by the U.S. military, Central Intelligence Agency and other covert organizations. According to Alan Scheflin, a world renowned expert in the field of mind control/hypno programming, research has been conducted to create multiple personalities for mind control purposes since the early 1940s and 'by the early 1950s, research was under way throughout the government to find any means possible to influence a person's thought and conducts.'"
The attorneys claim that Scheflin corroborated Kallas' diagnosis of Sirhan: "When asked to elaborate, Scheflin notes that Dr. Simson-Kallas commented that he became curious because Sirhan was unable to remember details of the crime, unlike most killers he interviewed. He said that Sirhan's description of the events appeared artificial, as if he was '... reciting from a book.' His description was more that of a person who dreamed an event that that of a participant. Dr. Simson-Kallas told Scheflin, petitioner '... was put up to draw attention while experts did the work. Being an Arab, he would easily be blamed. He was programmed to be there. He said to me that he actually liked Kennedy, that he held no animosity towards him.'" (Ellipses in brief.)
