By The Daily Caller (U.S.) | Created at 2026-09-06 22:51:15 | Updated at 2026-09-07 00:28:19
2 hours ago
New York City’s mayor turned a solemn 9/11 commemoration into a firestorm by steering the signing pen toward an aide who once defended an al-Qaeda operative.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani gathered administration officials at City Hall on Friday to sign two executive orders ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the New York Post. One order designates the date a citywide Day of Remembrance and Service, while the second strengthens the city’s emergency preparedness and continuity plans, VINnews reported. (RELATED: ‘Most Of Us Will Be Very Upset’: Many 9/11 Families Not Too Thrilled About Mamdani Attendance At Memorial Ceremony)
Mamdani gave the ceremonial pen to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and quietly asked, “Can you pass this?” according to the Post. Tisch then handed it to chief counsel Ramzi Kassem, who had slipped into the press conference near its end, before she became the first official to leave the room.
Mamdani hands symbolic 9/11 pen to former lawyer of al-Qaeda terrorist: 'tone deaf' https://t.co/UH4ZWlZmTi pic.twitter.com/MBN9O6bDGf
— New York Post (@nypost) September 5, 2026Kassem previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi, who pleaded guilty to war-crime charges linked to al-Qaeda maritime plots, including the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker off Yemen, Fox News reported. Al-Darbi was held at Guantánamo Bay, and his sister married Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon and killed 184 people.
Relatives of those killed in the attacks condemned the gesture. “How can you defend a guy like that who wants to do Americans or any innocent person harm?” said Dennis Warchola, whose firefighter brother died in the North Tower, the Post reported. Joyce Cohen Day, whose mother died in the South Tower, told the Washington Times that Mamdani deliberately gave a pen “to an al Qaeda lawyer.”
Democratic New York state Assemblyman Kalman Yeger called the moment “sick,” the Washington Times reported. Republican Council Member Vicki Paladino of Queens said Kassem “doesn’t even belong in this country, much less in our government,” according to the Post.
The mayor’s office told the Post that Kassem attended because he and his team drafted both orders as part of his duties as chief counsel.
