Doubt cast on JFK 'lone assassin' theory

by Andrew Buncombe [Excerpted]

More than 40 years after he was fatally shot in Dallas, researchers have added fresh fuel to the speculation over who was involved in the assassination of President John F Kennedy by claiming the original bullet analysis was flawed and cannot rule out that a second gunman was involved.

Using new scientific techniques not available to previous researchers and analysing bullets from the same batch purportedly used by Lee Harvey Oswald, the team has argued that it cannot be assumed that Oswald was the only assassin involved. While they do not claim evidence to prove a second gunman participated, they say the original fragments of the bullets recovered from the scene of the shooting should be re-examined.

"Given the significance and impact of the JFK assassination, it is scientifically desirable for the evidentiary fragments to be reanalysed," the researchers write in the journal Annals of Applied Statistics.

Kennedy, the 35th US president, was fatally shot as his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas on 22 November 1963. The official Warren commission that investigated the killing concluded the following year that the president had been killed by two of three shots fired by Oswald - his first shot having missed - from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

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