Democratic socialist mayoral candidate Zohran smiled, waved, and stayed silent when pressed about his relationship with the allegedly terror-tied Imam Siraj Wahhaj.
“Mr. Mamdani, anything to say about the imam? He said some nasty stuff, does it bug you?” a Post reporter asked the 34-year-old mayoral candidate Sunday.
“Anything?”
New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani was silent over his ties to terror-linked Brooklyn Imam Siraj Wahhaj when questioned by a Post reporter on Sunday. David DeTurris/NY Post
Mamdani, however, just smirked without a word as he climbed into the back of a waiting SUV.
Pressed later in the day, Mamdani again grinned and refused to comment on the Brooklyn imam – who also has a history of homophobic comments on top of his terror allegations.
Mamdani has been in hot water since the Friday rendezvous with Wahhaj, wom he spoke glowingly of in a post on X.
“Today at Masjid At-Taqwa, I had the pleasure of meeting with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century,” the candidate wrote.
But critics were quick to raise an eyebrow over the meeting given Wahhaj’s questionable past.
He was considered by federal prosecutors to be an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — which left six people dead — because several people involved in the terror attack had attended his mosque, the New York Times reported.
Mamdani (center) poses for photo on Friday with NYC Councilman Yusef Salaam (left) and Wahhaj (right). X/ZohranKMamdani
Wahhaj was never charged in the bombing and denied any connection, but later defended people behind the attack and called the FBI and CIA the “real terrorists.”
His own son, however, was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of keeping a band of teenagers in squalor in the New Mexico desert while training them to carry out terror attacks across the country.
Wahhaj personally homeschooled that son, but later called him sick and said he was the one who called police and thwarted his plans.
He has also quoted Islamic scripture that calls for the death of gay men.
While he told his followers to avoid physical violence against the LGBTQ community, Wahhaj encouraged them to try to convert them and “make them feel uncomfortable” for being gay.
Mamdani’s opponents in the November race – Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa — have called his association with Wahhaj “disqualifying.”
“New York needs a mayor who protects New Yorkers from terrorism, not embraces terrorists,” Sliwa said.