New York City\u2019s Chief Counsel Ramzi Kassem shouldn\u2019t be condemned for his work legally representing an al-Qaida member. He should be thanked.<\/p>\n
Take it from retired Lt. Cmdr. Travis Owens, who served 20 years as a Navy JAG lawyer, and worked alongside Kassem at Guant\u00e1namo Bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cAside from the fact that it\u2019s un-American to accuse a defense attorney of being aligned with his defendant, it\u2019s also illogical,\u201d Owens told City & State.<\/p>\n
The pair each represented Ahmed al-Darbi \u2013 Kassem as the civilian lawyer, Owens as the military lawyer \u2013 as he pleaded guilty to helping plan the 2002 suicide bombing of a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen. Al-Darbi then cooperated, providing critical intelligence and testimony that prosecutors and defense lawyers declared<\/a> was \u201cunprecedented in similar counterterrorism prosecutions to date.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRamzi deserves credit for that,\u201d Owens said. Born in Beirut and raised across the Middle East before coming to the U.S. for college, Kassem could speak Arabic and relate to al-Darbi and other clients in a way that most military lawyers couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cTo have Ramzi on the case, I mean, you couldn\u2019t have asked for a better situation in terms of the government being able to get what it wanted to get out of the defendant,\u201d Owens said.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump seemed to agree. Given al-Darbi\u2019s plea deal, and his level of cooperation, Trump allowed him to be repatriated to Saudi Arabia<\/a> in 2018 and serve out his sentence in his home country. Al-Darbi was the first \u2013 and apparently, still the only detainee released from Guant\u00e1namo over Trump\u2019s two terms.<\/p>\n Kassem deserves credit for being a good lawyer there too, Owens said. \u201cThe fact that he got somebody out while the current administration was in office \u2013 that, to me, is mind-boggling, to be honest with you.\u201d<\/p>\n Kassem\u2019s record has come under intense scrutiny around the ginned up outrage over how New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the city\u2019s first Muslim leader, should be commemorating 9\/11.<\/p>\n After the mayor did his mayoral duties, and signed an executive order<\/a> declaring Sept. 11 a day of remembrance and service, and updated the city\u2019s emergency preparedness plans, he handed a ceremonial pen to Kassem \u2013 who, as the mayor\u2019s top lawyer, proudly helped write those very orders. The New York Post wrote a story calling this anodyne act offensive<\/a>, quoting two City Council members declaring him disloyal to America. Others followed<\/a>.<\/p>\n And now the fact that Mamdani even appointed Kassem has been cited<\/a> constantly<\/a> as a reason the mayor shouldn\u2019t attend the Friday ceremony honoring the victims of terrorism at ground zero.<\/p>\n Kassem himself is staying quiet, declining to comment. But he asked Owens, his old colleague, to speak with a journalist and share the context. Owens lives in California, now a Democrat who grew up as a right-wing Republican in Tennessee. He\u2019s got no particular thoughts on Mamdani. But he wanted to help set the record straight, after seeing his old colleague under fire.<\/p>\n Everything touching Sept. 11, 2001, is emotionally charged, and that\u2019s understandable. Defense attorneys, in particular, are used to vitriol. But the record should be set straight, about a man who upheld the American values of zealous representation, even through one of our country\u2019s dark chapters at Guant\u00e1namo Bay.<\/p>\n Al-Darbi \u201cwas providing critical stuff,\u201d Owens said. \u201cHe was the key cooperator in helping the U.S. government stop terrorist attacks. Without Ramzi, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City\u2019s Chief Counsel Ramzi Kassem shouldn\u2019t be condemned for his work legally representing an al-Qaida member.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[6492,9,24,63,299,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-342913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-editors-note","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-opinion","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342913","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=342913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}