An Egyptian-American man behind an anti-Islam film that has stoked violent protests across the Muslim world was arrested on Thursday in California for allegedly violating his probation, and a federal judge ordered him jailed without bond.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, was taken into custody at an undisclosed location by US marshals and brought to court in Los Angeles still wearing his street clothes, but handcuffed and shackled at the waist.
Nakoula has been under investigation by probation officials looking into whether he violated the terms of his release from prison last year on a bank fraud conviction while making the film, though authorities have said they were not probing the movie itself.
“The court has a lack of trust in the defendant at this time,” US Magistrate Judge Suzanne Segal said in refusing Nakoula’s request for bail at a hearing in US District Court.
His crudely made 13-minute video was filmed in California and circulated online under several titles including Innocence of Muslims. It portrays the Prophet Mohammed as a fool and a sexual deviant.
The clip sparked a torrent of anti-US unrest in Egypt, Libya and dozens of other Muslim countries over the past two weeks.
Nakoula, under the terms of his release from jail, has been barred from accessing the Internet or using aliases without the permission of a probation officer, court records show. He now faces eight accusations of violating his terms of probation.
Nakoula has stayed out of the public eye for much of the past two weeks, amid outrage over the film. Last week, Pakistani Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour offered US$100,000 to anyone who kills the maker of the video.
A lawyer for Nakoula expressed concern in court on Thursday for his client’s safety and asked that the hearing be closed to the media.
Defense attorney Steve Seiden, in asking for Nakoula’s release on US$10,000 bond, argued unsuccessfully that he had stayed in touch with probation officials even while in hiding.
“It’s a danger for him to be in custody at Metropolitan Detention Center due to the large Muslim population there,” Seiden said, referring to the federal jail in central Los Angeles.
However, prosecutors said Nakoula, who could be sent back to prison for up to two years if he is found to have violated the terms of his release, had been dishonest with the court, even about his name.
“Most specifically, he did not accurately present himself as who he was to the people he cast in the film,” Assistant US Attorney Robert Dugdale said, adding that in his view Nakoula would be safer behind bars.
The probation issues were the latest of Nakoula’s legal woes. On Wednesday, an actress who says she was duped into appearing in the film sued Nakoula, who she identified as the producer.
Cindy Lee Garcia also named YouTube and its parent company, Google Inc, as defendants in the case.
Google has refused to remove the film from YouTube, despite pressure from the White House and others to take it down, though the company has blocked the trailer in Egypt, Libya and other Muslim countries.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS