Anti-Islam film producer sent back to jail for a year

Nakoula was sent back to jail for violating terms of his probation due to the role he played in making the film.

LOS ANGELES: A California man who served time for bank fraud was sent back to jail on Wednesday for violating his probation by playing a role in making a crude anti-Islam film that stoked protests across the Muslim world against the United States.

The Egyptian-born Coptic Christian, who has been publicly identified as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula but whose legal name is Mark Basseley Youssef, admitted to several probation violations during a hearing in US District Court in Los Angeles.

At least one violation involved his use of an alias, Sam Bacile, a name that several actors from the film said he used in producing the video, which was released under the title "The Innocence of Muslims."

A YouTube user named Sam Bacile had also uploaded clips of the film on to the video sharing website earlier this year. However, it did not gain prominence till September this year when a translated version was aired in Egypt.

Protests in Egypt soon caught world attention, along with it the clip and riots erupted across the Muslim world against the US and YouTube. In the immediate aftermath of the protests, US consulates and embassies in Egypt and Libya were attacked while there were massive violent protests outside consulates and embassies in Yemen and Pakistan.

YouTube restricted access to the clip in Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, India, Malaysia and Indonesia while Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Sudan completely blocked the website after its parent company, Google, refused to either take the film off the site nor restrict access.