Mamdani hands 9/11 ceremony pen to aide who once represented al-Qaeda operative

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed two executive orders at City Hall on Friday, September 4, ahead of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

But the ceremony drew attention for what happened after the signing, when Mamdani’s symbolic pen was passed to his chief counsel Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer who previously represented al-Qaeda operative Ahmed al-Darbi.

The first order established a Day of Remembrance, while the second focused on strengthening security against future te**or threats. After signing the final document, Mamdani handed the ceremonial pen to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and quietly asked, “Can you pass this?” Tisch then handed it to Kassem, who had arrived near the end of the press conference.

The video below shows Mamdani handing a ceremonial pen to City Hall aide Kassem during a 9/11 remembrance ceremony.

Zohran Mamdani’s ceremonial pen reaches Ramzi Kassem

Kassem was seen on video smirking as he received the pen.

His appearance and the handoff quickly drew criticism from people connected to the 9/11 community and New York politicians.

Retired detective and John Jay College of Criminal Justice adjunct professor Michael Alazar described the moment as deliberate.

“It was calculated,” Alazar told The New York Post.

“It happened during a ceremony meant to be about the victims, and no one else. 9/11 families didn’t come to City Hall to watch Mamdani spotlight someone whose work intersects with the very ideology that took their loved ones,” he said.

Alazar also criticized the role given to Tisch, saying the police commissioner was “reduced to a prop rather than acknowledging her role as the leader of the NYPD.”

Dennis Warchola, whose brother Michael, a firefighter with Ladder 5, died in the North Tower, also condemned the gesture.

“It’s bulls**t,” Warchola said. “How can you defend a guy like that who wants to do Americans or any innocent person harm?”

Ramzi Kassem previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi

Kassem, 48, previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi, who was held at Guantanamo Bay on te**orism charges in connection with the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker in the Middle East, an attack linked to an al-Qaeda plot targeting the global oil trade after 9/11. He pleaded guilty to the charges in 2014. 

Al-Darbi's sister was married to Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the 9/11 hijackers whose plane crashed into the Pentagon.

Kassem also founded a CUNY legal clinic offering free representation to Muslims and defended Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

He arrived roughly 15 minutes late to the City Hall press conference and left shortly after receiving the pen.

Council Member Joann Ariola calls Zohran Mamdani's move 'breathtakingly tone-deaf'

Council Member Joann Ariola called the moment “breathtakingly tone-deaf and disrespectful.”

“It shows exactly where his loyalties truly lie,” Ariola said. 

“The 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,” she added. 

Council Member Vicki Paladino also criticized Kassem’s involvement, saying, “His participation in anything related to 9/11 is an insult to every New Yorker who survived that day, and indeed all Americans.”

The mayor’s office told The Post that Kassem was at the ceremony because he and his team had written both executive orders as part of his duties as chief counsel.