The man accused of killing Rabbi Meir Kahane says he believes a Jewish man shot the militant Jewish leader to death, according to reports published today. State Supreme Court Justice Alvin Schlesinger set bail Wednesday at $300,000 for El Sayyid Nosair, 35, of Cliffside Park, N.J., during a hearing in Manhattan Criminal Court. Nosair is accused of shooting Kahane to death Nov. 5 as the rabbi finished speaking to a Jewish group at a midtown Manhattan hotel. He also is accused of wounding two other men and threatening a third while fleeing. He was stopped when a U.S. Postal Service police officer shot him in the neck a block from the hotel. New York Newsday and The New York Times reported today that Nosair gave a statement to police in which he said he believed a Jewish man did the shooting. Newsday said Nosair claimed the gun was placed next to him as he lay wounded in the street. Nosair also said in the statement that he went to see Kahane's lecture because he agreed with much of Kahane's anti-Arab rhetoric. Groups of Jews and Arabs nearly came to blows in a raucous confrontation outside the courtroom at Wednesday's hearing. ``No bail for murderers!'' yelled the Jews, and the Arabs shouted, ``God is great! Thanks be to God!'' as they met in the 13th-floor hallway. Nosair's lawyer, Michael Warren, was accompanied by an Egyptian lawyer, Abdel Halim Mandour, who said he was helping in the case. Nosair came to this country from Egypt in 1981. ``We will raise the bail as quickly as we can,'' Warren said. Warren had asked that bail be set at $100,000. He said Nosair had never been arrested before, has a wife and child and other relatives here, and was a responsible city employee. Nosair, a university-trained engineer, worked as a boiler tender. Assistant District Attorney William Greenbaum opposed bail, telling Schlesinger that the prosecution had witnesses, the murder weapon and ballistics evidence to tie the defendant to the crimes. Schlesinger scheduled another hearing for March 4.
