New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani turned a solemn 9/11 ceremony at City Hall into a fresh controversy Friday by handing [1] a symbolic signing pen to his chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer who once represented an Al Qaeda terrorist linked to the Pentagon attack.
City officials had gathered for the signing of two executive orders ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
One order established a Day of Remembrance, while the other sought to strengthen security against future terrorist 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 gave the pen to Kassem, who had entered the press conference shortly before the presentation.
Video from the event showed Kassem smirking as he received the pen.
Tisch quickly left the Blue Room afterward, becoming the first city official to depart the press conference.
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Retired detective and John Jay College of Criminal Justice adjunct professor Michael Alcazar told The Post that the moment appeared intentional.
“It was calculated,” Alcazar said.
Alcazar argued that a ceremony dedicated to 9/11 victims should never have become a platform for an official whose legal work involved a terrorist tied to the ideology behind the attacks.
He also criticized the use of Tisch as little more than a messenger during a ceremony involving the department she leads.
The gesture drew a furious response from Dennis Warchola, whose brother Michael served with Ladder 5 and died in the North Tower.
Warchola condemned the decision and asked, “How can you defend a guy like that who wants to do Americans or any innocent person harm?”
Council Member Joann Ariola, a Queens Republican, also blasted the mayor’s conduct as stunningly 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.”
Kassem previously represented Ahmed al Darbi, an Al Qaeda operative convicted in connection with the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker in the Middle East.
The attack was part of an Al Qaeda campaign targeting the global oil trade after 9/11.
Al Darbi was later held at Guantánamo Bay.
His sister married Khalid al Mihdhar, one of the hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 77, which terrorists crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
Kassem, 48, founded a legal clinic at the City University of New York that provides free representation to Muslims.
He also defended Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the pro Palestinian encampment at Columbia University who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The mayor’s chief counsel was not present for most of the press conference.
He arrived roughly 15 minutes late, entered near the end of the event, accepted the pen, and then left shortly behind Tisch.
Mamdani’s office told The Post that Kassem attended because he and his legal team had written both executive orders as part of his official responsibilities.
That explanation did little to calm critics who viewed the ceremonial handoff as an insult to grieving families and first responders.
Council Member Vicki Paladino, another Queens Republican, said Kassem’s involvement in any official 9/11 observance was offensive.
“His participation in anything related to 9/11 is an insult to every New Yorker who survived that day, and indeed all Americans. But I suspect that’s the point.”
Former Democratic political consultant David Sivella went even further, questioning whether the gesture was meant to send a political signal.
“Was it deliberate on your part to give your Muslim base a hint that this is all BS to pacify other New Yorkers?” he wrote on X.
For New Yorkers who still carry the scars of that terrible morning, however, City Hall’s bizarre pen ceremony offered another reminder that political theater can intrude even where basic dignity should prevail.