"No Regrets," Says Producer of Muhammad Film

With an attitude of complete disdain for the violence he caused, the producer of the film that aroused a wave of fury and indignation in Arab countries said that he had no regrets about making “Innocence of Muslims,” where he satirized Muhammad, the Islamic Prophet. “I am saddened by the killing of the ambassador” — Chris Stevens, murdered in Libya on Wednesday during a protest — “but I do not regret making it,” Nakoula Basseley Nakoula told American Arabic-language Radio Sawa during a phone interview.

Nakoula is 55 years old and lives about 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of Los Angeles, where he remains in the custody of local police and FBI agents. Although there are dark questions surrounding all the facts connected with this character, the New York Times revealed that he currently owns a gas station and has a history of arrests and business failures. The film, explained the newspaper, was shot in the summer of 2011, in the outskirts of Los Angeles, and nobody knows exactly where the funds came from.

“I am the one who leaked the 14 minutes and put it on the Internet and I am thinking about releasing the full film,” warned Nakoula, an Egyptian Coptic Christian who claims to have dual American-Israeli citizenship. And he added, “I have a message for the whole world and not for Muslims. I hope that you watch the movie in full before you judge it.”

Nakoula served a one-year prison sentence for bank fraud in 2010 and was prosecuted earlier for manufacturing synthetic drugs. In the interview, he did not explain how he entered the film world or the reasons that led him to make this movie, where a degrading image of Muhammad is portrayed.

The 60 actors and 40 crew members said they had been “tricked” by Nakoula into making the movie, since they thought that they were shooting an adventure inspired by Arab history and that its original name was “Desert Warriors.” But then, in post-production, dialogues about Muhammad that were not in the original script were added. Several Arab countries have already asked the U.S. to take measures against Nakoula.