The alleged assassin of Rabbi Meir Kahane, Egyptian-born E1 Sayyid Nosair, had numerous combat-related items stored in his New Jersey home, including a receipt for a case of 7.62mm cartridges, according to court papers filed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
The 7.62mm cartridge is used both in NATO rifles and in the AK-47 Kalachnikov rifle that has been used in Eastern Europe and many Third World countries. It is also known for its use in sniper rifles, primarily outside the NATO bloc, said an official of the National Rifle Association.
Nosair, who has been charged with first-degree murder in the Nov. 5 death of Kahane, has pleaded not guilty and is being held on $300,000 bail. He allegedly killed Kahane after he delivered a speech at a midtown Manhattan hotel.
The D.A.’s office is hoping to convince the judge sitting in Nosair’s case to revoke the bail.
According to the court papers filed Monday in State Supreme Court by District Attorney Robert Morgenthau’s Office, police searching Nosair’s home found plasterboard with bullet holes in it, some pistols, earplugs, literature relating to guns, hand grenades and bomb making.
Nosair had a great deal of literature in his home, including a guide to buying guns and ammunition and a pamphlet called “Arms in Afghanistan.”
He also had news clippings relating to the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the attempt on Interior Minister Zaki Badr, undertaken by an Islamic fundamentalist group.
A vial of poison was also found in the search of Nosair’s locker at his Manhattan job as a boiler mechanic in New York’s downtown criminal and civil courthouse, according to The New York Times.
D.A. officials would not release the name of the shop from which the receipt for the 7.62mm cartridges came. A National Rifle Association official said the cartridges are readily available throughout the country.
Both the New York Times and New York Newsday reported Tuesday that not only receipts but a case of such cartridges was found during the search of Nosair’s house following Kahane’s death Nov. 5. But a spokeswoman for the D.A.’s Office said the reports were incorrect.
“I helped executing the warrant (to search the house) and the only things there were a lot of papers, and the only ammunition taken out of there was a half-box of shells and a few 22 caliber shells,” said a police officer from Cliffside Park, N.J., where Nosair lived.
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