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Socialist New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announced on Tuesday that he is appointing controversial lawyer Ramzi Kassem, who defended al Qaeda terrorist Ahmed al-Darbi in court, as the city’s top attorney.

Mamdani, who will take office on Jan. 1, announced he was appointing Kassem as New York City’s chief counsel, the top legal role in the city. He also shared that he is appointing Steven Banks a self-proclaimed «social justice attorney» as corporation counsel and Helen Arteaga as deputy mayor for health and human services.

Kassem’s record includes serving as a senior policy advisor for immigration on the White House Domestic Policy Council under former President Joe Biden.

Kassem served as lead counsel in al-Darbi’s defense. In 2014, al-Darbi pled guilty before a U.S. military commission to conspiracy in connection with an al Qaeda terrorist plot to bomb the French oil tanker MV Limburg off the coast of Yemen. One civilian was killed in the attack and several others were injured. He was convicted of the crime in 2017 and was transferred by the Trump administration in 2018 to Saudi Arabia’s custody.

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«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.»

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Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani speaks to members of the media at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in the Queens borough of New York on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025. (Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

«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 went on, adding, «That is the city I want to build. The prosperity I intend to deliver and the leadership that has too long been lacking.»

Kassem thanked Mamdani for the appointment, saying he considers it a «call of duty to serve the city that I’ve called home, the city that embraced me.»

«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,» said Kassem. «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.»

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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.»

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing intensifying political scrutiny after U.K. counterterrorism police began assessing resurfaced social media posts by Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, whom the prime minister had publicly welcomed back to Britain following his release from prison in Egypt.

Abd El-Fattah was forced to apologize this week after the controversial posts published between 2008 and 2014 that included remarks endorsing violence against «U.S. soldiers, Zionists and police.» The posts resurfaced shortly after his return to the U.K., triggering political backlash and a counterterrorism review, including a tweet he wrote: «From time to time I remind people that I rejoice when U.S. soldiers are killed, and support killing Zionists, even civilians.»

Abd El-Fattah returned to Britain on Boxing Day after receiving a pardon from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Starmer, who had campaigned publicly for his release and described the case as a priority for his government, said he was «delighted» when Abd El-Fattah arrived in the country.

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That welcome has since become a central point of controversy, although Starmer later condemned the historic posts as «absolutely abhorrent» and said the government was «taking steps to review the information failures in this case.»

An official Counter Terrorism Policing spokesperson said authorities have received multiple public referrals related to Abd El-Fattah’s historical posts and that they are now being assessed by specialist officers within the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), according to GB News.

GB News reported that the posts under review include material in which Abd El-Fattah allegedly described the killing of Zionists as «heroic» and appeared to call for violence against police. One post is reported to have stated, «We need to kill more of them.» Another post is alleged to have read: «By the way I’m a racist, I don’t like white people so piss off.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper ordered an urgent review into what she described as «serious information failures» in the case and said neither she nor Starmer were briefed on the social media posts before Abd El-Fattah arrived in Britain. Cooper said she «very much regrets» the government’s public welcome and that it «added to the distress felt by Jewish communities in the U.K.»

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Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly Prime Ministers’ Questions session in parliament in London, Wednesday, July 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

Speaking to Fox News Digital, Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, attacked the government’s handling of the case, saying: «The British Government is guilty of incompetence at the very least for having embraced an activist with such an obvious and appalling social media record.»

He continued, «The fact that el-Fattah’s public commentary was not checked by successive administrations allowing him access to first citizenship and consular support and then admission to the U.K. shows how shambolic our institutions have become. There is nothing British about this man beyond a quirk of administration, and he should be stripped of his status immediately and deported on account of who he really is: an enemy of this state.»

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Much of the material now under scrutiny dates to between 2010 and 2012, a period during which Abd El-Fattah was an active figure in Egypt’s protest movement, which led the way to the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Mohamed Morsi seizing power and becoming Egyptian president.

In his apology, Abd El-Fattah said the posts reflected «expressions of a young man’s anger and frustration in a time of regional crises,» including wars in Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza, and rising police brutality in Egypt. He said he particularly regretted posts written during online disputes and acknowledged he «should have known better.»

Police Superintendent John Loveless addresses the media in Huntingdon, England, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

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Opposition lawmakers argue the episode exposes a broader failure of vetting and judgment. Conservative MP Robert Jenrick has dismissed the apology as «scripted and fake» and called for Abd El-Fattah’s removal from Britain, according to GB News.

Reuters contributed to this report.