New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an executive order Friday recognizing September 11 as a Day of Remembrance – and then handed the ceremonial pen to his controversial chief counsel, a lawyer who previously represented an Al Qaeda terrorist linked to the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\n
City Hall officials gathered for the signing of two executive orders ahead of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. One established a Day of Remembrance, while the other sought to strengthen the city\u2019s security against future terrorist threats.<\/p>\n
After signing the final document, Mamdani handed the ceremonial pen to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and quietly asked, \u201cCan you pass this?”<\/p>\n
Tisch then handed the pen to Mamdani\u2019s chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, who had entered the Blue Room shortly before the ceremony ended. Tisch was the first official to leave the press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was calculated,” retired detective and John Jay College of Criminal Justice adjunct professor Michael Alcazar told the New York Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt happened during a ceremony meant to be about the victims, and no one else. 9\/11 families didn\u2019t come to City Hall to watch Mamdani spotlight someone whose work intersects with the very ideology that took their loved ones,” Alcazar said. \u201cCommissioner Jessica Tisch was reduced to a prop rather than acknowledging her role as the leader of the NYPD.”<\/p>\n
Kassem, who famously represented Al Qaeda operative Ahmed al-Darbi, was seen smirking as he accepted the symbolic pen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s bulls-t,” said Dennis Warchola, whose brother Michael, a firefighter with Ladder 5, was killed in the North Tower.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can you defend a guy like that who wants to do Americans or any innocent person harm?” he asked.<\/p>\n
Queens City Council Member Joann Ariola, a Republican, accused Mamdani of staging a \u201cbreathtakingly tone-deaf and disrespectful” gesture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe families who lost loved ones on 9\/11 have every right to be outraged,” Ariola said. \u201cOn the 25th anniversary, City Hall should be honoring their sacrifice with dignity, not forcing those families to endure yet another insult.”<\/p>\n
Al-Darbi was sent to Guantanamo Bay after being convicted in connection with the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker in the Middle East, which was described as part of an Al Qaeda plot targeting the global oil trade following the September 11 attacks.<\/p>\n
His sister was married to Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the 9\/11 hijackers who was aboard the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.<\/p>\n
Kassem, 48, founded a legal clinic at the City University of New York offering free legal representation to Muslims. He also represented Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n
The controversial lawyer was not present for most of Friday\u2019s press conference. He entered approximately 15 minutes late, just as the ceremony was ending, and left shortly afterward, immediately behind Tisch.<\/p>\n
Mamdani\u2019s office told the Post that Kassem attended because he and his team had drafted both executive orders as part of his responsibilities as chief counsel.<\/p>\n
But Queens Council Member Vicki Paladino sharply criticized his involvement.<\/p>\n
\u201cRamzi Kassem said he was inspired by 9\/11 – not to join the fight against terrorism, but to defend the terrorists themselves,” Paladino said. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t even belong in this country, much less in our government.”<\/p>\n
\u201cHis participation in anything related to 9\/11 is an insult to every New Yorker who survived that day, and indeed all Americans,” she added. \u201cBut I suspect that\u2019s the point.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an executive order Friday recognizing September 11 as a Day of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[34583,41769,9,56,63,65,64,82],"class_list":["post-339393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-9-11-memorial","tag-al-qaeda","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}