Seen with a young actress who is now living in fear for her life, this is the first picture of the man said to be behind the anti-Islam movie that has triggered violence across the Middle East.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula – also known as Sam Bacile – was last week named by the FBI as the film-maker responsible for Innocence Of Muslims, which ridicules the prophet Muhammad.
The Mail on Sunday has exclusively obtained this on-set image of him with the film’s star Anna Gurji, who says she was duped by the 55-year-old director.
Conman: Nakoula Basseley Nakoula on the set of the film with Ms Gurji in a red wig.
Nakoula is an Egyptian-born Coptic Christian. Now living in California, he is a convicted drug dealer and conman who was last released from jail in June last year.
The film has ignited anti-US clashes from Morocco to Malaysia. Seven people have been killed, thousands injured and last night the rioting had spread to Sydney, Australia. It was also reported that Sudan had rejected a US request to be allowed to send in Marines to protect its embassy.
‘I’m Catholic so they might think I have something against Muslims. I’m taking pills to sleep. I’ve been crying for days. I feel betrayed. My face is stuck on the movie clip. People see that awful film and they see me.’
'Betrayed': Anna Gurji said she was misled over the film's true contents
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula is escorted out of his home by Los Angeles County Sheriff's officers in Cerritos, California.
Ms Gurji said she and her fellow actors believed they were making an action film called Desert Warrior and that Nakoula, or ‘Sam’ as she knew him, never discussed religion.
‘I was told I was to be Hilary, the young bride of a character called George,’ she said. ‘The film was about a comet that falls to Earth in the ancient Middle East. There are different tribes who think the comet is somehow holy and fight over it. There were supposed to be lots of special effects so a lot of the filming was in front of a green screen. It was super low-budget. I was getting $75 [£50] a day and all my scenes were shot with George against the green screen. I had no idea how it would be twisted.
‘Maybe I’m naive but no warning bells went off. I auditioned, showed up and did my lines. None of us involved in it had any idea there was a secret agenda.’
Chaos: Smoke rises from the US embassy building in Tunis during a protest against Nakalou's film
A protester holding his rifle during the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya on 11th September
The crudely made 13-minute English-language film, filmed in California and circulated on the Internet under several titles including 'Innocence of Muslims', mocks the Prophet Mohammad.
The film sparked a violent protest at the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi during which the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed on Tuesday. Protests have spread to other countries across the Muslim world.
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.
U.S. officials have said authorities were not investigating the film project itself, and that even if it was inflammatory or led to violence, simply producing it cannot be considered a crime in the United States, which has strong free speech laws.
Two attorneys visited Nakoula's home hours before he was taken in for questioning. They said they were there to consult with him.
The violent protests over the film in Libya caused mob attacks in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American officials.
A TV reporter is pictured outside the home of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula in Cerritos, California
The U.S. Embassy in Cairo was attack by protesters yesterday and demonstrations against American consulates spread to Yemen on Thursday and on Friday to several other countries across the Middle East.
Nakoula, whose name has been widely linked to the film in media reports, pleaded guilty to bank fraud in 2010 and was sentenced to 21 months in prison, to be followed by five years on supervised probation, court documents showed.
He was accused of fraudulently opening bank and credit card accounts using Social Security numbers that did not match the names on the applications, a criminal complaint showed. He was released in June 2011, and at least some production on the video was done later that summer.
But the terms of Nakoula's prison release contain behavior stipulations that bar him from accessing the Internet or assuming aliases without the approval of his probation officer.
A senior law enforcement official in Washington has indicated the probation investigation relates to whether he broke one or both of these conditions. Violations could result in him being sent back to prison, court records show.
Hang in on a minute, the woman who played Mohammed's bride say's she knew nothing about what she was getting in to? of course she knew, they all knew, and now they are that scared they will say anything to get out of what they have done.
The Daily Mail are saying the director of the film is a convicted drug addict and con man, so now they are trying to belittle him and make the public believe that the film is just a farce and that he told lies about Mohammed. Weather he has served time or not, he got a film crew together, and they they all had scripts to read, so of course they knew what they were doing, i and don't blame them one little bit for saying they were duped in to making the film because no one want's hundreds of Muslims looking for them because we know what would happen to them.
But no matter what the director has been in jail for, he has obviously studied the Koran and knows all about Mohammed and his 6 year old child bride, he knows the Koran is all about under age sex, rape and murder, there is no talk about love at all in the Koran, and it's not even a religious book. The director of the film, has only told the truth about Islam and Mohammed. Muslims have gone on the rampage and showed themselves up for what they really are, and doing exactly what it say's in the Koran, and by their actions of what they have done after this film was made, shows that Islam is not and never will be a religion of peace.
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