Nina Rhodes-Hughes, a key witness to the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, has agreed to testify for Sirhan Sirhan's new defense team.

Rhodes told CNN earlier this year that she believed Sirhan Sirhan did not act alone in the assassination of the former U.S. senator.

What has to come out is that there was another shooter to my right, Rhodes-Hughes told CNN in an exclusive interview published online in April. The truth has got to be told. No more cover-ups.

Rhodes-Hughes, 78, who now lives in Vancouver, said she has been contacted by Sirhan's lead lawyer, William Pepper, of New York. He asked me if indeed I would testify that there was another shooter and I said yes, I would.

Rhodes-Hughes, a long-overlooked witness to the murder, has reportedly long said that she heard two guns firing during the 1968 shooting and that authorities altered her account of the crime.

There were more than eight shots, and it's interesting that you read whatever the FBI issued, everybody else said eight shots, Rhodes-Hughes said.

Rhodes-Hughes, who was serving as a volunteer fundraiser for Kennedy's campaign when he was fatally shot in a kitchen pantry at the Ambassador Hotel on June 5, 1968, is an American-born television actress and local theatre enthusiast.

Forty-four years after the shooting, Rhodes-Hughes has brought one of the great American tragedies back in to the news spotlight, as she told CNN in an exclusive interview that she heard at least 12 shots that day -- not eight as argued by the California prosecutors who convicted Sirhan as the lone gunman.

In the 1969 trial of Sirhan Sirhan, the defense at no point made an attempt to challenge the prosecution's case that he was the one and only shooter in Kennedy's assassination.

Sirhan went on to testify that he had killed Kennedy with 20 years of malice aforethought, and was convicted and sentenced to death, which was eventually reduced to life in prison in 1972.

It was only after the trial that Sirhan then recanted his courtroom confession.

Despite the recent court filings by Sirhan, state prosecutors argue that even if Rhode-Hughes' testimony was confirmed, Sirhan would still be guilty of murder under California's vicarious liability law.

Nonetheless, Sirhan's new legal team has chosen to dispute the assertion about the statute and will call Rhodes as a witness.

Rhodes-Hughes' recent recollection, which has never been argued before a judge, is one of the main pieces of evidence being brought forward by Sirhan's new lawyers.

Court California New York Lawyer