Who is Sam Bacile?

Susan Brannon
Who is Sam Bacile pseudonym?
14 September 2012

I reported in "The Film that Sparked the Violence, Egypt, Libya" by using what I would call "credited" mainstream news reports, AP said that they interviewed Sam Bacile while the New York Times reported the same.  I used other outlets who all said the same thing, in the end I could not figure out why the Arab world was attacking American interests, when Bacile was quoted as saying that he was an Israeli Jew.  Later, I read a comment from the state of Israel saying that they could not find a Sam Bacile as a citizen, yet they could not explain more because they protect their citizens.  This left me with my syndical concepts, yeah, Israel would not admit such a thing.

Instead, I played the role of a journalist who took the story and added my opinion.  What I should have done was question the AP (?) who is to be credible and able to research who this Sam Bacile is, their contact and source.  It must have been a hot story to want to get it in the press so quickly without research if the person actually exists.  In the end the media and myself took a run on it.

So, what's the real story?  In Italy, the news is saying that Mr. Bacile is not Israeli but Egyptian, CNN quotes an anti-Muslim activist Steve Klein, who was a script consultant for the movie and was called, "Innocence of Bin Laden" to reveal "facts, evidence and proof" about the prophet Mohammed.  Klein stated that the man with the pseudonym, Sam Bacile, was upset about the events of the film and what happened to the ambassador.

We know that the trailers were translated into Egyptian dialects of Arabic and that the Egyptian television aired certain segments.  The fury followed.

CNN was able to interview some of the actors of the film, who reported an outrage for the producer for "misleading" them regarding the films contents and possible dubbing.  One of the staff told CNN that he knew the producer as Sam Bassil and that is how the check was signed.  He was 99% positive that "Bassil" was not Jewish and had several Madonna's in the home.

Rumors have it that this Bassil/Bacile is a Coptic Christian.  Sam Bassil had an indictment for a bank fraud conviction in 2009 for Nakoula Basseley Nokoula.  With aliases such as:  Mark Basseley Youssef, Yousseff M. Basseley, Nicola Bacily and Malid Ahlawi…were aliases in the indictment.  There is a list of other names on other indictments as well. Does any of these names have anything to do with the film and who produced it or is it just another false lead?

The Feds consider Sam Bacile/Sam Bassil to be Nakoula Basseley Nakoula…says Time magazine. He was tracked down Wednesday at his Los Angeles area home by the AP.  Nakoula denied having any connection to Bacile, that he managed "logistics for the film" However, as the investigation continues…the AP discovered that the cell-phone number used by the man who identified himself as Bacile to the press is registered to the same address where the reporter found Nakoula. It has also been reported by ABC that the police were summoned to Nakoula's home to provide extra protection.  However, asking the police for protection does not mean that he is the actual producer.

The mystery remains, who produced the film and who financed it?  We all know that it was a flop during the screening and someone took the July posting (who posted it?) and translated it into Egyptian Arabic to be shown to the Arab world.

In the end, the film has caused protesters aired their anti-American anger in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Violent mobs attacked the U.S. Consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi leaving the ambassador and three other Americans dead.

Information taken from Time http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/09/13/friends-of-sam-bacile-a-whos-who-of-the-innocence-of-muslims-film-project/
CNN http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/13/world/anti-islam-filmmaker/index.html