The plot thickens: The AP corrects its reporting on Sam Bacile (an alias)

Posted by AzBluieMeanie:

The person who identified himself as Sam Bacile and described himself as the writer and director of the “Innocence of Muslims” told the AP on Tuesday that he had gone into
hiding.

But doubts rose about the man’s identity amid a flurry of false claims about his background and role in the film. Official: Calif. man is key figure behind the film (paragraphs have been reordered):

Bacile told the AP he was an Israeli-born, 56-year-old Jewish writer
and director. But a Christian activist involved in the film project,
Steve Klein, told the AP on Wednesday that Bacile was a pseudonym and
that he was Christian.

Klein had told the AP on Tuesday that the filmmaker was an Israeli Jew who was concerned for family members who live in Egypt.

Officials in Israel said there was no record of Bacile as an Israeli citizen.

When the AP initially left a message for Bacile, Klein contacted the AP
from another number to confirm the interview request was legitimate;
then Bacile called back from his own cellphone.

A federal law enforcement official said Thursday that Nakoula Basseley
Nakoula, 55, was the man behind “Innocence of Muslims,” a film
denigrating Islam and the Prophet Muhammad that sparked protests earlier
in the week in Egypt, Libya and now Yemen.

* * *

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not
authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation, said Nakoula was
connected to the persona of Sam Bacile, a figure who initially claimed
to be the writer and director of the film. But Bacile quickly turned out
to be a false identity, and the Associated Press traced a cellphone
number used by Bacile to a southern California house where Nakoula was
found.

* * *

Nakoula told the Associated Press in an interview outside Los Angeles
Wednesday that he managed logistics for the company that produced
“Innocence of Muslims,” which mocked Muslims and the prophet Muhammad.

Nakoula
denied that he was Bacile and insisted he did not direct the film,
though he said he knew Bacile. But federal court papers filed against
Nakoula in a 2010 criminal prosecution said that he had used numerous
aliases in the past. Among the fake names, the documents said, were
Nicola Bacily, Robert Bacily and Erwin Salameh, all similar to the Sam
Bacile persona. Other aliases described in the documents included Ahmad
Hamdy, Kritbag Difrat and PJ Tobacco.

During a conversation
outside his home, Nakoula offered his driver’s license to show his
identity but kept his thumb over his middle name, Basseley. Records
checks by the AP subsequently found that middle name as well as other
connections to the Bacile persona.

The AP located Bacile after
obtaining his cellphone number from Morris Sadek, a conservative Coptic
Christian in the U.S. who had promoted the anti-Muslim film in recent
days on his website. Egypt’s Christian Coptic populace has long decried
what they describe as a history of discrimination and occasional
violence from the country’s Arab majority.

* * *

Nakoula, who talked guardedly about his role, pleaded no contest in
2010 to federal bank fraud charges in California and was ordered to pay
more than $790,000 in restitution. He was also sentenced to 21 months in
federal prison and ordered not to use computers or the Internet for
five years without approval from his probation officer.

Assistant
U.S. Attorney Jennifer Leigh Williams said Nakoula set up fraudulent
bank accounts using stolen identities and Social Security numbers; then,
checks from those accounts would be deposited into other bogus accounts
from which Nakoula would withdraw money at ATM machines.

It was
“basically a check-kiting scheme,” the prosecutor told the AP. “You try
to get the money out of the bank before the bank realizes they are drawn
from a fraudulent account. There basically is no money.”

* * *

Klein said he didn’t know the real name of the man he called “Sam,” who came to him for advice on First Amendment issues.

* * *

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, said
Klein is a former Marine and longtime religious-right activist who has
helped train paramilitary militias at a California church. It described
Klein as founder of Courageous Christians United, which conducts
protests outside abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques.

It
quoted Klein as saying he believes that California is riddled with
Muslim Brotherhood sleeper cells “who are awaiting the trigger date and
will begin randomly killing as many of us as they can.”

* * *

Attorney General Eric Holder said that Justice Department officials had
opened a criminal investigation into the deaths of the U.S. ambassador
to Libya and three other diplomats killed during an attack on the
American mission in Benghazi. It was not immediately clear whether
authorities were focusing on the California filmmaker as part of that
probe.

So now it looks like we have two anti-Muslim Egyptian Coptic Christians living in the U.S., Nakoula Basseley
Nakoula who made the film, and Morris Sadek who promoted the film on his web site, and an anti-Muslim American militant right-wing Christian who helped make the film, Steve Klein, whose anti-Muslim bigotry and hatred have roiled the Muslim world and cost four Americans their lives as well as the lives of Libyan security forces. Who knows how many more lives will be lost because of violence sparked by the religious bigotry and hatred of these individuals.

For the record:

An official of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Los Angeles said in a
statement Thursday that the church’s adherents had no involvement in the
“inflammatory movie about the prophet of Islam.” An official identified
as HG Bishop Serapion, of the Coptic Orthodox of Los Angeles, said that
“the producers of this movie should be responsible for their actions.
The name of our blessed parishioners should not be associated with the
efforts of individuals who have ulterior motives.”

Religious liberty means religious tolerance for the free exercise of all faiths. These hateful individuals clearly did not learn this lesson.