Add The New York Post on Google A group of aggrieved 9/11 victims’ relatives gathered at City Hall Tuesday to hand deliver a petition urging Mayor Zohran Mamdani to steer clear of ceremonies marking the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks.
More than a dozen mourners shared their frustration with Mamdani’s confirmed attendance at Friday’s annual ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial during which the names of all 2,983 victims of the attacks will be read aloud.
“It’s not about his religion or where he came from. It’s about the policies he has today,” said Cheri Sparacio, who lost her husband, Tom Sparacio, a currency trader at Euro Brokers on the 84th floor of the South Tower.
Some of the families also called out Mamdani for hiring Ramzi Kassem — who represented an al Qaeda terrorist held at Guantánamo Bay in 2014 — as his chief counsel.
“It is today that he hires people like Ramzi Kassem… That is what we object to,” Cheri Sparacio said.
The group signed onto a petition, started by Giovanni Galante — whose wife Grace Catherine Galante was killed in the attacks — in July on Change.org, calling on Hizzoner to forgo the emotion-filled ceremony.
The petition has since racked up more than 102,000 signatures, and was delivered to Mamdani’s office in City Hall Tuesday, where it was received by Kassem’s chief of staff.
“I don’t know why he’s so adamant about this one when we just ask that he respect us from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m.,” said Monica Iken, who lost her husband of just 11 months, Michael Patrick Iken, a 37-year-old bond broker working on the 84th floor of the South Tower.
Mamdani has maintained that he will attend the memorial ceremony Friday and other commemorative events this week. He also signed two executive orders last week including one to establish September 11 as a “Citywide Day of Remembrance Service.”
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City Hall did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
