Metro

GZ mosque boss slams GOP candidate

The leader of the controversial mosque planned near Ground Zero ripped into a Republican congressional candidate in Queens for politicizing the issue.

Sharif El-Gamal, head of Park51 — the mosque and Muslim community center proposed several blocks from the World Trade Center site — criticized GOP contender Bob Turner for a political ad using visual images of the Twin Towers collapsing.

Turner’s cable TV ad blasted his Democratic opponent, Assemblyman David Weprin, for defending El-Gamal’s right to build the center.

“The right wing has failed at this already. This is a man who wants to become a leader in that district? That’s pathetic,” El-Gamal fumed on NY1’s “Inside City Hall” Tuesday night.

Weprin has defended El-Gamal’s right to build the mosque, but he also said he would prefer it be constructed farther from Ground Zero.

Weprin and Turner are facing off on Sept. 13 in what is turning out to be a tight race to replace former Rep. Anthony Weiner, who resigned after it was discovered he had exchanged sexually explicit text messages with multiple women.

A Weprin spokesman responded that “Bob Turner will stop at nothing — even using 9/11 imagery for his own political gain.”

Turner, who defended his ad, yesterday said he would oppose any federal tax dollars going to the development of the mosque and called on Weprin to do the same.

“Not one penny of taxpayer money should be spent building that mosque,” Turner said yesterday.

sgoldenberg@nypost.com