CAIRO: According to an article published in The Guardian by Max Blumenthal, The Associated Press was “duped” by the man behind the clip that sparked violent protests against the United States in the Middle East and Islamic world. Initial reports following the protests in Egypt and Libya on Tuesday said that “Sam Bacile” was behind the film. He was cited as being an Israeli citizen working in California as a real estate developer. The AP reported that “Bacile” went into hiding in the United States on Wednesday after the violence erupted. In an interview with the news wire service, he continued his anti-Islam comments by calling the religion “a cancer.” But the reality of who he is turns out to be much different that the picture he delivered to AP. In fact, he is not even Israeli, Blumenthal reported. Not even the Israeli government could track a man by that name. “After being duped by Bacile, AP traced his address to the home of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a militant Coptic separatist and felon convicted of check fraud,” Blumenthal said in his article published on Thursday. “On September 13, US law enforcement officials confirmed that ‘Sam Bacile' was an alias Nakoula used to advance his various scams, which apparently included the production of The Innocence of Muslims.” Even more worrying was the fact that the “film” appears to have been manipulated, including telling actors that they were to participate in a film titled “Desert Warrior.” Cindy Lee Garcia, who is briefly in the film, told Reuters news agency that she answered the casting call for a movie she was told would be titled “Desert Warrior" and had no idea it was to be an anti-Islam film. “It looks so unreal to me, it's like nothing that we even filmed was there. There was all this weird stuff there," Garcia told Reuters in a phone interview. The film, which sparked the violence across the region, depicts Islam's Prophet Mohamed as a fraud, showing him having sex and calling for massacres. The film clip, now revealed to be produced and financed by exiled Coptic Christian extremists, highlights the ongoing battle for tolerance. One of the leading producers of the film, Morris Sadek, is known for his virulent attacks against Islam, including calling for the Israeli government to invade Egypt and save it from the “Muslim occupation” of Coptic Christian lands. At least now, after days of speculation, the truth of the film is coming to light and it shows the extremist nature of the Coptic Christian community abroad who want to inflame the Muslim majority in Egypt toward violence. But Christians in Egypt have shown their solidarity with their Muslim brothers and sisters, organizing a protest on Wednesday against the film, a sign that most Christians in Egypt do not support the extremism being spouted by those who helped bring forward this film.
