Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the Coptic Christian filmmaker whose film The Innocence of Muslims was falsely blamed by the Obama Administration as the catalyst for the 9/11 terrorist attack in Benghazi, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that the Obama Administration had acted irresponsibly in its attempts to smear him.
Nakoula, 55, only just given supervised release from prison, where he had languished because of a 2010 bank fraud conviction, said he was shocked by the actions of the Obama Administration.
“Because, you know, I never thought, my movie can cause anyone trouble or anyone can get killed from my movie,” he said. Nakoula said of Obama himself, “I don’t blame him. He has a lot of responsibility,” but then added: “Guys, before you do anything, please give yourself time to think about it, because you are responsible people. You are in a place–you have to be responsible in it.”
Nakoula explained that people who reacted violently to his film were “stupid people, they didn’t even show the whole movie….My movie is not a religion movie, it’s political more than [religious]. I never be against any religion. I have a Muslim friends. I am against the terrorism culture. I am against Osama bin Laden. I am against (Al Qaeda leader Ayman al) Zawahiri. I am against (Fort Hood shooting suspect Nidal) Hasan….I am against the culture itself, not the religion.”