Suspect Wins Acquittal in Rabbi Slaying : Trial: Man convicted on weapon, assault charges. Meir Kahane, Jewish Defense League founder, was shot in New York.

NEW YORK — A jury late Saturday found an Egyptian-born Muslim man not guilty of killing Rabbi Meir Kahane, the controversial founder of the militant Jewish Defense League.

El Sayyid Nosair, 36, also was acquitted of the attempted murder of a postal police officer.

Nosair was convicted of criminal possession of a weapon, assaulting postal policeman Carlos Acosta and another man and coercion for seizing a taxi as he fled the mid-Manhattan hotel where Kahane was slain on Nov. 5, 1990.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Alvin Schlesinger set sentencing for Jan. 29. Nosair faces a maximum penalty of seven to 21 years in prison. Had he been convicted of second-degree murder, he would have faced a maximum sentence of 25 years to life.

The jury reached the verdict in its fourth day of deliberation. When the verdict was announced, more than 35 court officers were standing guard as Kahane supporters shouted: “You’ve given him a license to kill.”

After the jurors had left the courtroom, Kahane followers stood and shouted: “Death to Nosair, Death to Nosair, Arab dogs will die.”

One supporter pointed angrily to the empty jury box and said: “That was no jury of our peers.”

The large contingent of court officers was assembled in an attempt to prevent fighting between Kahane’s backers, who sat on one side of the room, and supporters of Nosair, who sat on the other. The two groups had clashed in street scuffles outside the courthouse at the start of the trial.

Kahane, 58, a former member of Israel’s parliament and a fierce proponent of expelling Arabs from Israeli territories, was shot to death after giving a speech at a Manhattan hotel. He was answering questions from the audience of about 100 people when a man walked toward him, pulled out a .357-caliber revolver and started firing.

After the shooting, the suspect wounded a man in the leg and commandeered a cab. The taxi went a block, and the gunman fired at Acosta. The bullet glanced off the postal service policeman’s bulletproof vest and Acosta returned fire, striking Nosair in the neck.

Kahane had not requested police protection, and detectives later said it appeared that Nosair, a New York City maintenance worker, apparently had acted alone.

Nosair’s attorneys had claimed that Nosair was framed by the rabbi’s followers, who the defense said killed Kahane in a dispute over money. The defense had claimed that the real killers placed the murder weapon next to Nosair’s hand after he was shot by the Postal Service police officer.

They noted that no one testified that they saw Nosair shoot Kahane, and no scientific evidence directly linked him to the killing.

Nosair came to the United States in 1981 and became a citizen in 1989. Before his arrest, Nosair worked as an air conditioning technician at the court building across the street from the building where the trial was held.