Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an executive order recognizing 9\/11 Friday \u2014 and then\u00a0gave\u00a0the symbolic pen\u00a0to his controversial aide who once represented an al-Qaeda terrorist with links to the attack on the Pentagon.<\/p>\n
Administration officials were gathered at City Hall for a pair of executive orders \u2014 ahead of the\u00a025th anniversary of the Sept. 11<\/a>\u00a0attacks \u2014 one establishing a Day of Remembrance and another beefing up security against future terror threats.<\/p>\n After Mamdani signed the last of the documents, Hizzoner gave Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch the ceremonial pen, and whispered, \u201cCan you pass this?\u201d<\/p>\n Mamdani asked Tisch to pass the 9\/11 pen to his chief council, Ramzi Kassem, right. NYC Mayor’s Office<\/p>\n Tisch awkwardly handed it to\u00a0Mamdani\u2019s chief counsel<\/a>, Ramzi Kassem, who just snuck into the press conference, before she hurried out of the Blue Room \u2014 the first official to exit the press conference.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was calculated,\u201d retired detective and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice Michael Alcazar told The 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.\u00a0Commissioner Jessica Tisch was reduced to a prop rather than acknowledging her role as the leader of the NYPD.\u201d<\/p>\n Kassem, a lawyer who famously represented al-Qaeda operative\u00a0Ahmed al-Darbi<\/a>, is seen on video smirking as he receives the symbolic pen.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s bulls\u2013t,\u201d slammed 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?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt shows exactly where his loyalties truly lie,\u201d said Council Member Joann Ariola (R-Queens), who slammed the socialist mayor\u2019s stunt as \u201cbreathtakingly tone-deaf and disrespectful.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe families who lost loved ones on 9\/11 have every right to be outraged. On the 25th anniversary, City Hall should be honoring their sacrifice with dignity, not forcing those families to endure yet another insult.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Tisch awkwardly handed the symbolic pen to Kassem, who smirked as he received it. NYC Mayor’s Office<\/p>\n Al-Darbi was sent to Guant\u00e1namo Bay after he was convicted of terrorism in the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker in the Middle East \u2014 part of an al Qaeda plot to attack the global oil trade after 9\/11. His sister married Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the 9\/11 hijackers of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.<\/p>\n