In Los Angeles a woman named Lily Dionne answered an ad on Craigslist looking for actors for an action adventure film. A crew of over 79 showed up to make a film called “desert warrior” that was supposed to be a historical Arabian Desert adventure, but turned out to be an anti-Islamic film that has caused outrage in the Muslim world. This movie caused violent mobs to attack the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi. Four Americans died during the attack.

The cast and crew back in LA were shocked and horrified when they found out that the movie they thought was harmless, turned out to be anti-Islamic featuring Mohammed. How did one man calling himself Bacile manage to make this film without anyone knowing its true nature? The cast and crew said that from the beginning they had questions about the nature of the film. The main characters name was George, and they were confused as to why a western name was being used in a Middle Eastern film. Later, the cast was asked to dub lines. They were asked to say the work Mohammed, but without any context they had no idea why they were asked to say certain words. In postproduction, Bacile replaced all the Georges with Mohammad.

The crew said they were “shocked by the drastic rewrites of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred.”

Bacile was not found in any U.S. registry, and it is now believed that his real name is Nakoula. Nakoula has a criminal record and history of using aliases. He was convicted of bank fraud in 2010 and served one year in federal prison. He is currently on supervised probation for 5 years. An investigation is taking place to see if Nakoula has violated any terms of his probation during this latest incident.

What types of repercussions should Nakoula face? Certainly fraud? Could he be held responsible for the violent mob attacks? How does freedom of speech play into this?

 

SOURCE: CNN