They may be a hate group but Eric Holder likes them.

‘Kill Whitey’ Panther is held on gun rap

By LAURA ITALIANO and JAMIE SCHRAM

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The tattoo on his face says, “Kill Whitey” in block letters, and cops say the gun he carried was loaded and unlicensed.

But that didn’t stop Maruse Heath — head of the Philadelphia chapter of the New Black Panther Party — from claiming that he’s really all about charity and outreach as he was arraigned on a gun-possession charge in Manhattan last night.

“It is my understanding that the New Black Panther Party is the functional equivalent of the KKK,” Assistant District Attorney Christopher Ryan countered as Heath, 41, was ordered held in lieu of $75,000 bail for getting busted allegedly with a gun in Harlem Thursday night.

MARUSE HEATH Had on a bulletproof vest.

Heath, aka “King Salim Shabazz,” was arrested on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard as he left a meeting of New Black Panther Party members. The group had gathered to plan a 15th-anniversary Million Man March commemoration, scheduled for Harlem on Sept. 7.

Heath was unjustly “jumped” by cops as he left the meeting and walked near Seventh Avenue, said his lawyer, Brad Foster, in arguing unsuccessfully for low bail.

“It is no crime to belong to the Black Panther Party,” the lawyer argued. The group does, “charity work within the local community, outreach to the homeless, and works with at-risk youth who are at risk of becoming criminals.”

“I don’t believe there’s any justification for the stop,” he added. “It’s very dark, 10:30 at night,” he said of cops’ decision to stop Heath for allegedly wearing a bulletproof vest. “They grabbed him by the shoulders and cuffed him and he was in custody.”

But the prosecutor argued that the diminutive Heath was wearing a whopping size-52 ballistic vest — obvious in almost any light.

“A 52, sized as regular men’s clothing, is clearly obvious,” the prosecutor argued. “He was stopped, and a loaded handgun was taken from his pocket.”

Heath faces a mandatory minimum of three and a half years if convicted of possessing the .25-cal. gun. He is due back in Manhattan Criminal Court on June 26, when he will be informed if he has been indicted on charges of gun possession and the illegal wearing of body armor.

Sources told The Post that Heath’s first call while in custody was to Malik Zulu Shabazz, who is the national chairman of the New Black Panther Party, considered by the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to be a Black supremacist hate group.