nnocence of Muslims: Director revealed as pornographer; producer questioned by police

[mounir412 101]

By Al Arabiya with Agencies

The inflammatory anti-Islam film that has triggered rioting across the Muslim world was produced by a U.S. religious group called Media for Christ and directed by a pornographer, media reports said on Saturday, as the man believed to be the filmmaker was taken for questioning on Saturday.

The man apparently behind the film -- entitled ‘Innocence of Muslims’ on its 14-minute YouTube trailer -- is a U.S.-based Egyptian Copt and fraudster who may have violated his parole, U.S. officials said Friday.

The film was directed by 65-year-old Alan Roberts, a veteran whose prior oeuvre was dominated by schlock soft porn and hammy action with titles like ‘Young Lady Chatterley II’ and ‘Karate Cop,’ according to website Gawker.

Gawker interviewed members of the cast of ‘Innocence of Muslims,’ who say they were duped into appearing in what they thought was a fictional epic, only to discover their lines had been dubbed over with anti-Muslim propaganda.

Roberts’ casting call lists the leading roles as George, Condalisa and Hillary, but in the finished version, the script was doctored to make them represent the Prophet Mohammed and figures from the Quran.

The film was promoted by a network of right-wing Coptic and Evangelical Christians with a radical anti-Muslim agenda, like Egyptian American provocateur Morris Sadek and Terry Jones, a Florida pastor notorious for publicly burning copies of Quran.

And, acting as ‘consultant,’ was Steve Klein, a Vietnam veteran and founder of Courageous Christians United who is notorious for protests outside mosques and Mormon temples and who told AFP he helped the moviemakers.

The film itself does not appear to have broken any U.S. laws, but Nakoula Bassily Nakoula, the 55-year-old Egyptian Copt believed to have written the film, may have breached the rules governing his conditional release from prison.

“The matter is under review,” said a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Nakoula was reported to have been taken by the Los Angeles County authorities for interviewing on Saturday, The Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday.

A 2009 indictment from a U.S. District Court in California shows that Nakoula was charged with defrauding U.S. banks by opening false accounts and passing bad checks.

He has since been released on probation, and the document says he agreed to testify against the alleged ringleader in the check scam, but if Nakoula is now found to have broken the terms of his parole, he could go back to jail.

As part of his release terms, he was forbidden from using computers or the Internet for five years and fined $790,000.

Steve Whitmore, spokesman of the Los Angeles County sheriff, told NBC4 that deputies assisting the federal probation department took Nakoula to the sheriff’s substation in Cerritos for interviewing.

However, The Times quoted Whitmore as saying that Nakoula was taken in for a voluntary interview with probation officials and has not been arrested or detained.

According to The LA report, on Friday, U.S. courts spokeswoman Karen Redmond said the Office of Probation in the Central District of California was reviewing whether Nakoula, who was convicted on bank fraud charges, violated terms of his probation in relation to the video and its uploading onto the web.

This week saw Nakoula move from anonymous petty criminal to become a central figure in an international incident that has triggered mass protests in Muslim-majority countries in North Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and seen several U.S. diplomatic missions attacked.

U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

“I am the one who leaked the 14 minutes and put it on the Internet and I am thinking about releasing the full film. Nobody manipulated my film,” Nakoula said in an interview to Radio Sawa, a US-government station that broadcasts in Arabic. The clip on YouTube was picked up by Egyptian television.

The film has amateurish production values, with actors in laughable false beards appearing to hover weightlessly in front of stock desert footage.

But its depiction of the Prophet Mohammed as a thuggish deviant offended many Muslims, and sparked a wave of anti-American protests that have cost several lives and saw mobs burn U.S. missions, schools and businesses.

According to Paul Audley, president of Film LA, which issues filming permits in Los Angeles, a group called Media for Christ was issued a one-day shooting license in August 2011 for a film with the working title ‘Desert Warriors.’

“I do know personally for having looked at it, before it was withdrawn, that the producer’s name on it is Sam Bossil,” he said in an interview. Bossil is believed to be one of the pseudonyms used by Nakoula, who uploaded the clip as “Sam Bacile.”

A man identifying himself as Sam Bacile gave interviews to U.S. media this week in which he claimed to be an Israeli-American Jew who made the film to help Israel, but a consultant on the movie has since debunked this claim.

Media for Christ’s websites and Facebook page were taken down without explanation Friday, but the group is reportedly a right-wing conservative operation founded by Joseph Nasralla Abdelmasih, an Egyptian Copt.

“Media for Christ is a place to discover the word of God and the Gospel preached by many different ministries and ministers in the Lord,” the brief introduction to the otherwise defunct website reads.

The group is based just outside Los Angeles in the city of Duarte, where city manager Karen Herrera confirmed it holds an active business permit.

For many Muslims, any depiction of the prophet is blasphemous. Caricatures deemed insulting in the past have provoked protests and drawn condemnations from officials, preachers, ordinary Muslims and many Christians.

[X Factor 1,112]

I saw him on TV when they took him in for questioning. His head was covered.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

I saw him on TV when they took him in for questioning. His head was covered.

The person with the covered head was actually Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, (AKA "Sam Bacile" and a myriad of other aliases,) the convicted felon and self-professed gas station attendant who was initially identified as the filmmaker, and who was listed on some of the film documents.

Alan Roberts, the porn director associated with the film, seems to be an alias used by the same person also known as Robert Brownell and Robert Brown.

What an odd assortment of people connected with this film. If I was a conspiracy buff, I might start to think it was all an elaborate front for a psy op.

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

The person with the covered head was actually Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, (AKA "Sam Bacile" and a myriad of other aliases,) the convicted felon and self-professed gas station attendant who was initially identified as the filmmaker, and who was listed on some of the film documents.

Alan Roberts, the porn director associated with the film, seems to be an alias used by the same person also known as Robert Brownell and Robert Brown.

What an odd assortment of people connected with this film. If I was a conspiracy buff, I might start to think it was all an elaborate front for a psy op.

Won't be the first time, remember Mossadegh and Lamumba and countless others?

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Won't be the first time, remember Mossadegh and Lamumba and countless others?

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

Oops, I forgot, nothing happened. I wonder what the weather is like at Gitmo this time of year.

Edited September 16, 2012 by IR5FORMUMSIE