Exclusive | Zohran Mamdani eyeing lawyer who defended al Qaeda terrorist for top City Hall job: source

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has tapped a controversial lawyer who defended an al Qaeda terrorist and a radical anti-Israel campus leader at Columbia for a “high-ranking” position at City Hall, The Post has learned.Ramzi Kassem, who is also a law professor at City University of New York and a member of Mamdani’s transition team for legal affairs, is the top candidate for Chief Counsel, the most important advisory role in the mayor’s office, according to a source close to the transition team.Kassem, 47, was one of the attorneys who defended Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born leader of the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and earmarked for deportation.However, after 104 days in a detention camp judges ruled he should be released.

In addition to Khalil, Kassem helped to defend terrorist Ahmed al-Darbi, an al Qaeda member who was convicted in 2017 of bombing a French oil tanker, the Limburg, off the coast of Yemen in 2002.“Kassem’s appointment to corp counsel wouldn’t sit well with the Jewish community,” said Ken Frydman, a Democratic political operative.“Everyone’s entitled to legal representation…even Mahmoud Khalil.

But that doesn’t mean Ramzi Kassem had to represent him,” he added to The Post.Kassem, who was born in Syria, was also engaged in anti-Israel protests at Columbia, where he attended law school on a fellowship funded by members of leftwing activists the Soros family, records show.

In 1999, he wrote a letter to the editor of the Columbia Spectator newspaper criticizing the naming of a sandwich as an “Israeli wrap” because it was offensive to Muslims and Arabs, he said.In other columns for the newspaper, he wrote that Israel’s behavior amounted to “a clear case of ethnic cleansing,” and in another article in 1998 he wrote that Jews had come to the Middle East “with the intention of conquering the land.” A two-state solution between Israel and Palestine “is ...