Index: jackrabbit-core/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/core/xml/DocViewImportHandler.java
===================================================================
--- jackrabbit-core/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/core/xml/DocViewImportHandler.java	(revision 550753)
+++ jackrabbit-core/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/core/xml/DocViewImportHandler.java	(working copy)
@@ -225,12 +225,17 @@
 
             ArrayList props = new ArrayList(atts.getLength());
             for (int i = 0; i < atts.getLength(); i++) {
-                if (atts.getURI(i).equals(QName.NS_XMLNS_URI)) {
+                // some broken parsers will return null here - be defensive 
+                String uri = atts.getURI(i);
+                if(uri==null) {
+                  uri = "";
+                }
+                if (uri.equals(QName.NS_XMLNS_URI)) {
                     // skip namespace declarations reported as attributes
                     // see http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/JCR-620#action_12448164
                     continue;
                 }
-                QName propName = new QName(atts.getURI(i), atts.getLocalName(i));
+                QName propName = new QName(uri, atts.getLocalName(i));
                 // process property name
                 propName = processName(propName);