Mamdani Names Al-Qaeda Defense Attorney As New York City’s Chief Counsel

New York City’s Democratic socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has named Ramzi Kassem — an attorney who previously represented Al Qaeda terrorists — to serve as the city’s chief counsel in his administration.

“I will turn to Ramzi for his remarkable experience and his commitment to defending those too often abandoned by our legal system,” Mamdani said of Kassem, adding, “City Hall will be stronger with him in it, and our work of building a more prosperous city for all will have a powerful advocate.”

“My sincere hope is that New Yorkers who have long felt on the margins of this city, the homeless veteran straining to survive, the patient searching for the care that they need, an immigrant trying to get by will feel that they now have leaders in their corner who understand their struggles and care to fight for them,” Mamdani continued. “That is the city I want to build. The prosperity I intend to deliver and the leadership that has too long been lacking.”

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Kassem said that the appointment, to him, represented a chance to give back to the city he loved: “I grew up in war-torn countries in the Middle East, authoritarian regimes, and New York City was really my first stable and permanent home. This is an opportunity for me to repay that debt. I’ve been trying to repay that debt ever since I came to this country, ever since I immigrated.”

Critics argued that Kassem, who once represented al Qaeda terrorist Ahmed al-Darbi in court, was a strange choice to be chief counsel in a city that was devastated by an al Qaeda-linked terrorist attack on 9/11, 2001. Al-Darbi pleaded guilty in 2014 in connection with a plot to bomb the French oil tanker MV Limburg off the coast of Yemen. He was convicted in 2017, and in 2018, President Donald Trump’s administration transferred him to the custody of Saudi Arabia.

He also represented Mohammad Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani, who allegedly attempted to assist in the 9/11 hijacking and was held in detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for two decades. Kassem, who was teaching law at City University of New York at the time, had been working with students over the course of a decade to get him returned to Saudi Arabia. They succeeded in doing so in 2022.

In more recent history, Kassem represented pro-Hamas Columbia University agitator Mahmoud Khalil — and prior to that, he served in President Joe Biden’s White House Domestic Policy Council as a senior policy adviser.

NEW: Zohran Mamdani announced the nomination of Ramzi Kassem as Chief Counsel of New York City.

Kassem returned to America from the Middle East in 2001, inspired by 9/11 to defend an Al Qaeda terrorist.

“I found myself pulled in the direction of doing rights work domestically… pic.twitter.com/Duxc04q3b3

— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) December 31, 2025

New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino responded to the appointment, saying, “Less than 25 years after thousands of New Yorkers were killed on 9/11, the Chief Counsel of New York is going to be an Islamist lawyer who came to this country after 9/11 specifically to defend the very Al Qaeda terrorists we were fighting against. The fact that our immigration system post 9/11 even allowed him to step foot into the country is a monumental failure. Disgraceful isn’t a big enough word for what’s happening here. The federal government must get a LOT more involved in New York. We cannot allow these people to go unchecked.”