DeB protector sues

Muslim cop: I was smeared, held back

A Muslim cop on Mayor de Blasio’s security detail filed a $7 million federal suit against the city Friday, claiming he’s being discriminated against for his religion.

Detective Abdelim “Abe” Azab says he’s been denied a deserved promotion and prestigious gigs like protecting Hizzoner at the Park Slope Y because of his faith and Middle Eastern heritage — while his bosses smear him as a “misfit” who is “too intimidating.”

“Mr. Azab, a detective who went undercover after 9/11, has been regularly passed over for promotion, and has been given insulting assignments within his unit,” his attorney, Marshall Bellovin, of the firm Ballon, Stoll, Bader & Nadler, told The Post.

The Egypt-born Staten Islander spent seven years on the NYPD’s now-disbanded Demographics Unit, which put plainclothes investigators in predominately Muslim neighborhoods, and has been a detective second-grade since 2008 — earning a base pay of $103,585 last year plus another $60,00000 on top of that, public records show.

But Azab (right) claims he should have been promoted to first- grade by now — where he’d be earning $20,000 more a year and score an additional $15,000 toward his pension, his suit says. Azab alleges his bosses have made “vulgar” and “derogatory” comments about him — including that he’s “useless” and a “misfit,” and have directed sergeants to keep “Abe away from [de Blasio].” As a result, he spent most of 2015 through 2017 assigned to protect City Hall in an effort “to isolate him from the rest of the EPU [Executive Protection Unit],” Unit he alleges. He says he’s been repeatedly peate pulled off desirable sirabl driving details — on o at least four oc- casions, he claims he was told to pull over and vacate the car when the top cops realized he was driving.

When Azab asked the EPU’s commanding officer, Inspector Howard Redmond, about the treatment, he says he was told he is “too intimidating.”

Azab’s suit notes that other EPU cops have filed discrimination complaints, but alleges de Blasio has done nothing “to curb preferential assignments and preferential promotions that result in discriminatory practices.”

City Hall says it will review the complaint, adding “the NYPD’s EPU unit does not discriminate.” The NYPD declined to comment.