New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (right) announced he was appointing attorney Ramzi Kassem chief counsel on Tuesday. (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg; Hiroko Masuike/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
"While it may not make him whole, my hope is that repatriation at least marks the end of injustice for Ahmed," Kassem said at the time of the transfer, adding he had "16 long and painful years in captivity."
In 2025, Kassem represented anti-Israel activist and Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil who was arrested by ICE for his alleged role in leading antisemitic demonstrations on campus. Khalil has since been released, though his legal case is ongoing.
Announcing the appointment, Mamdani said, "I will turn to Ramzi for his remarkable experience and his commitment to defending those too often abandoned by our legal system."
The mayor-elect said that "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."
Pro-Hamas activist and former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil poses for selfies after his release from federal immigration detention in Jena, La., Friday, June 20, 2025. (Kat Ramirez for Fox News Digital)
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Kassem is the founder of the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) law clinic, a project that, according to its website, has a mandate "to support Muslim and all other client, communities, and movements in the New York City area and beyond that are targeted by local, state, or federal government agencies under the guise of national security and counterterrorism."
Peter Pinedo is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mamdani-taps-controversial-lawyer-who-defended-al-qaeda-terrorist-top-role-powerful-advocate