Egyptian Court announces death penalty over anti-Islam film

An Egyptian court has convicted in absentia seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a US pastor, sentencing them to death on charges linked to an anti-Islam film that had sparked riots in parts of the Muslim world.

The case was seen as largely symbolic because the defendants, most of whom live in the United States, are all outside Egypt and are thus unlikely to ever face the sentence.

Official spokesman for the prosecutor’s office Adel Al Saeed said the suspects are accused of being involved with the production of the film in California. Since the Egyptian citizens were tried in absentia, the sentence would be applied only if they returned to Egypt.

Protests against the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ film erupted in September in many Muslim countries, including Egypt, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Backed by hardcore anti-Islam groups in the United States, the film sparked outrage after an Arabic translation of the film’s trailer was released online a few weeks before the anniversary of September 11.

In Cairo, some protesters scaled the wall of the U.S. Embassy and tore down its American flag, replacing it with a black flag adorned with an emblem used by Islamic radicals. Police and army personnel had to be deployed to prevent demonstrators from advancing on the compound.

The film was also initially implicated in a violent demonstration in Libya that left the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans dead on September 11.

Earlier this month, the Egyptian-American man behind the film was sentenced in California to one year in federal prison after admitting to violating the terms of his probation from a 2010 bank fraud case.

The amateur filmmaker, Mark Basseley Youssef, also was ordered to serve four years of supervised release after his prison term. He was identified in initial news accounts in September as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the name used in the bank fraud case.

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Posted by Web Desk on Nov 29 2012. Filed under World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.