‘Lone Gunman’ Killed Kahane, N.Y. Official Says

Authorities said Tuesday that the alleged assassin of controversial Jewish activist Rabbi Meir Kahane was an Egyptian-born municipal maintenance worker in New York City’s criminal courts building who apparently acted alone.

Chief of Detectives Joseph Borrelli said that initial indications were that 34-year-old El-Sayyid A. Nosair, who arrived in the United States from Egypt in 1981 and became a naturalized citizen last year, was not part of any conspiracy with other individuals or groups.

“Right now, what we have is a lone gunman who committed a homicide in New York,” Borrelli told reporters at a late afternoon news conference.

Nosair, who remained at Bellevue Hospital in critical but stable condition, was formally charged with murder and related charges on Tuesday. Nosair was wounded by a U.S. Postal Service guard as he fled the hotel were Kahane was killed. Authorities said that it might be several days until Nosair would be capable of responding to intensive questioning.

Kahane, 58, a founder of the Jewish Defense League and former member of the Israeli Parliament who advocated expelling Arabs from Israel and its territories, was shot Monday night. He had just finished addressing a group of his supporters known as Jewish Idea at the New York Marriott East Side Hotel when a gunman identified as Nosair approached and began shooting.

Police were seeking a search warrant to enter the New Jersey residence where Nosair is believed to have lived with his wife, Caren, and three young children.

Borrelli said that detectives had questioned Nosair’s wife, but that she claimed to have no prior knowledge of her husband’s whereabouts on the night of Kahane’s murder or of any possible motive Nosair might have had for the shooting.

“In her words, she’s a good Muslim wife and never questions her husband,” he said.

Police Commissioner Lee P. Brown said that, despite no signs of a conspiracy, authorities were taking extensive precautions to guard both Jewish and Arab institutions in the city, including the Israeli and Egyptian missions to the United Nations, the offices of El Al Israel Airlines and New York’s local Jewish publications.

“We’re working very closely with the FBI and the State Department and all relevant international agencies to determine where the suspect came from and if he had any connection with any other individuals . . . or any connection with any particular group or organization,” Brown said at the news conference.

The commissioner said that the police investigation was being conducted with a view toward the problems in the Middle East and “how those problems may affect the safety of residents here in the city of New York.”

However, he said, police were unaware of any threats against Kahane prior to the shooting and were not providing him with protection.

As police delivered the status report on their investigation, thousands of mourners--some holding signs vowing “Revenge” and “Never Again”--packed a small, yellow-brick Brooklyn synagogue and the street outside during funeral services for Kahane.

The controversial Jewish activist was lauded as “a talented leader . . . a giant and a sword” during the militant but emotional afternoon ceremony.

Security was heavy as police closed the block in front of the synagogue to all vehicular traffic. The crowd was so thick that many who wished to pay tribute to Kahane were unable to enter the synagogue. After the service, Kahane’s body was flown from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Israel for burial.

Police and immigration officials said Tuesday that Nosair was born in Port Said, Egypt, in 1955 and arrived in the United States from Egypt in 1981. Two years later, while residing in Pittsburgh, Pa., he received permanent alien status and in 1989, in Newark, N.J., he became a naturalized American citizen.

He met and married his wife, an American who practices the Islamic faith, in Pittsburgh. They have two boys and a girl, the oldest of whom is 8.

The family resided at several addresses in New Jersey. However, Nosair listed the address of a relative in Brooklyn when he applied for his job with the city government.

He has worked as an air-conditioning maintenance man since April, 1988, at the criminal courts building in Manhattan, according to a spokesman for the city Department of General Services.

At one point, his children attended an Islamic school in Jersey City, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

Borrelli said that Nosair’s co-workers at the criminal courts building had been questioned but they reported “nothing unusual” about Nosair.

“We have not as yet determined and gotten a true motive in this case,” Borrelli said. “There were no shouts . . . no conversation between the assailant and Rabbi Kahane before the shooting.”

Kahane was shot just after he delivered a lecture about Israel and the Persian Gulf crisis to about 100 people in the hotel. Police said he was struck by at least one bullet, possibly two, fired from a .357-caliber Ruger revolver.

Swathed in anti-shock garb by paramedics, Kahane was rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where physicians pronounced him dead at 9:57 p.m.

Soon afterward, Kahane’s supporters arrived at the hospital and held a prayer vigil.

Police said that after shooting Kahane, Nosair fled from the floral-carpeted meeting room and fled down a hallway, where he encountered Irving Franklin, 73, who was selling literature about the meeting. Nosair shot Franklin in the leg and continued his flight.

Franklin was in stable condition at Bellevue.

Police said that Nosair commandeered a taxi at gunpoint outside the hotel but jumped out after the cab had driven only about 75 feet at East 48th Street and Lexington Avenue. There were conflicting reports on why Nosair exited the cab. One version said the driver had fled; the other said the cab got stuck in heavy traffic.

Upon leaving the taxi, Nosair was confronted by a uniformed U.S. Postal Service police officer, Carlos Acosta, 55. Borrelli said that Nosair fired at Acosta, striking him in the chest.

“Fortunately, he was wearing his bulletproof vest,” the chief of detectives said.

Acosta wounded Nosair in the chin during a brief exchange of gunfire.

Nosair was charged with second-degree murder, first-degree attempted murder, second-degree assault, criminal possession of a weapon and unlawful imprisonment for holding the cabdriver hostage briefly.

Police said the serial number had been obliterated from the revolver Nosair allegedly used to slay Kahane.

For more than two decades, Kahane has been a controversial figure, both in the United States and Israel, where he was expelled from the parliament after his extremist party was banned.

Most mainstream Jewish organizations condemned his philosophy and tactics.

Kahane founded the militant Jewish Defense League in 1968 because of what he described as the growing anti-Semitism of black militant groups.

Kahane was arrested many times in New York on charges of participating in disorderly protests. In July, 1971, two months before he moved to Israel, he was given a five-year suspended sentence and fined $5,000 after being convicted of conspiring to manufacture explosives.

The rabbi was an Israeli citizen but had been trying to win back his U.S. citizenship in court.