Meet The Right-Wing Extremist Behind Anti-Muslim Film That Sparked Deadly Riots

By Max Blumenthal

The US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three US diplomats were killed in attacks and rioting provoked by an obscure, low-budget anti-Muslim film called “The Innocence of Muslims.” The producer of the film is a real estate developer supposedly named “Sam Bacile” who claims to be an Israeli Jew. Bacile told the AP the film was made with $5 million raised from “100 Jewish donors.” He said he was motivated to help his native country, Israel, by exposing the evils of Islam.

While Bacile claims to be in hiding, and his identity remains murky, another character who has been publicly listed as a consultant on the film is a known anti-Muslim activist with ties to the extreme Christian right and the militia movement. He is Steve Klein, a Hemet, California based insurance salesman who claims to have led a “hunter-killer team” in Vietnam.”

Klein is a right-wing extremist who emerged from the same axis of Islamophobia that produced Anders Behring Breivik and which takes inspiration from the writings of Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, and Daniel Pipes.

It appears Klein (or someone who shares his name and views) is an enthusiastic commenteron Geller’s website, Atlas Shrugged, where he recently complained about Mitt Romney’s “support for a Muslim state in Israel’s Heartland.” In July 2011, Spencer’s website, Jihad Watch, promoted a rally Klein organized alongside the anti-Muslim Coptic extremist Joseph Nasrallah to demand the firing of LA County Sheriff Lee Baca, whom they painted as a dupe for Hamas.

Klein is also closely affiliated with the Christian right in California, organizing resentment against all the usual targets — Muslims, homosexuals, feminists, and even Mormons. He is aboard member and founder of a group called Courageous Christians United, which promotes anti-Mormon, anti-Catholic and anti-Muslim literature (including the work of Robert Spencer) on its website. In 2002, Klein ran for the California Insurance Commissioner under the American Independent Party, an extremist fringe party linked to the militia movement, garnering a piddling 2 percent of the vote.

Klein has been closely affiliated with the Church at Kaweah, an extreme evangelical church located 70 miles southeast of Fresno that serves as a nexus of neo-Confederate, Christian Reconstructionist, and militia movement elements. The Southern Poverty Law Center produced a report on Kaweah this spring that noted Klein’s long record of activist against Muslims:

Over the past year, Johnson and the church militia have developed a relationship with Steve Klein, a longtime religious-right activist who brags about having led a “hunter killer” team as a Marine in Vietnam. Klein, who calls Islam a “penis-driven religion” and thinks Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca is a Muslim Brotherhood patsy, is allied with Christian activist groups across California. In 2011, as head of the Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment, he worked with the Vista, Calif.-based Christian Anti-Defamation Commission on a campaign to “arm” students with the “truth about Islam and Muhammad” — mainly by leafleting high schools with literature depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a sex-crazed pedophile.

Klein, based in Hemet, Calif., has been active in extremist movements for decades. In 1977, he founded Courageous Christians United, which now conducts “respectful confrontations” outside of abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques. Klein also has ties to the Minuteman movement. In 2007, he sued the city of San Clemente for ordering him to stop leafleting cars with pamphlets opposing illegal immigration.

Like many other activists who fashion themselves as “counter-Jihadists,” Klein has organized against the construction of mosques in his area. While leafleting against a planned mosque in Temecula, California, which he claimed would herald the introduction of Shariah law to the quiet suburb, Klein remarked, “It all comes down to the first amendment. I don’t care if you disagree with me. Just don’t cut off my head.”

Klein appears to be allied with the National American Coptic Assembly, a radical Islamophobic group headed by Morris Sadik. Sadik claims to have discovered the film and began promoting it online. Once it went viral, the trailer was translated into Arabic, sparking outrage in the Middle East, and ultimately, to the deadly attacks carried out by Muslim extremists today.

Klein claims credit for inspiring “Sam Bacile” to produce “The Innocence of Muslims,” promising him he would be “the next Theo Van Gogh,” referring to the Dutch columnist who was murdered by a Muslim extremist. Of the attacks in Libya, Klein said, “We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen.”

Identity of mystery anti-Muslim filmmaker possibly revealed

By Stephen C. Webster/Raw Story

A man who claimed he’s the creator of an anti-Muslim film that’s sparked violent protests in Libya and Egypt may not be who he says he is.

The mysterious “Sam Bacile” supposedly spoke to The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal and The Times of Israel, claiming to be a California real estate developer and an Israeli Jew who raised $5 million for the film from 100 other nameless Jewish donors.

However, since those stories were published, several cracks in that description have emerged, and now reporters are wondering whether he even exists at all.

The WSJ reported that he’s 52, but the AP placed his age at 56. Raw Story‘s own inquiries could not find a ”Sam Bacile” linked to any California court filing, which would be highly unusual for a real estate developer. He’s also missing from U.S. genealogy databases and the major social media networks.

And yet another wrinkle: Speaking on condition of anonymity, Israeli officials told the AP that they have no record of anyone by that name. “If that is true, and ‘Bacile’ was claiming to be Jewish and to have raised money from Jews for the film, it only multiplies the incendiary nature of his project,” Religion Dispatches senior editor Sarah Posner pointed out.

Foreign policy reporter Laura Rozen also noted that Steve Klein, cited by the AP as a consultant on the film, said in 2007 that he had ties to the Coptic Christian community in Egypt, an often persecuted minority group. “And there were some hints that Bacile may be a pseudonym, possibly for someone affiliated with the Egyptian Coptic diaspora,” she wrote.

He also published a book called “Is Islam Compatible with Democracy?” which claims that mosques on U.S. soil are “the head quarters of terrorism.” Interestingly, the film, “Innocence of Muslims,” depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a gay man who approves of sexually abusing children, and shows his followers rioting and murdering Coptic Christians.

Speaking to The Daily Mail, Klein said he did not feel responsible for the violent protests that erupted in Egypt and Libya, resulting in the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

“I feel bad for the death of the ambassador – he didn’t do anything to anybody – but it’s not our fault,” he reportedly said. “We didn’t want anybody to get killed but on the other hand the truth had to come out. We told the truth and these people reacted the way that Mohammed wanted to them to react – by killing people. Do I feel guilt? Yes, but not for me, I feel it for those that did this. Do I feel shame? Yes, but not for me. Killing this man fits in with their legal and ethical standpoint.”

Update: Film’s consultant confirms “Sam Bacile” is not real

Speaking to The Atlantic, in a story published later Wednesday afternoon, Klein admitted that “Sam Bacile” is not real, claiming he doesn’t know the man’s real name.

“I don’t know that much about him,” he reportedly said. “I met him, I spoke to him for an hour. He’s not Israeli, no. I can tell you this for sure, the State of Israel is not involved, Terry Jones is not involved. His name is a pseudonym. All these Middle Eastern folks I work with have pseudonyms. I doubt he’s Jewish. I would suspect this is a disinformation campaign.”

The Associated Press has interviewed Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, who admitted to managing the company that created the movie. Nakoula denied that he posed as “Sam Bacile” and insisted the mystery filmmaker was an acquaintance of his. Nakoula is a Coptic Christian, who lives near Los Angeles, and has been convicted of financial crimes. Federal court documents showed he had numerous pseudonyms.

The cast and crew of the film also alleged that they had been duped by the filmmaker and were mislead about the true nature of the controversial film.

“The entire cast and crew are extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer. We are 100% not behind this film and were grossly misled about its intent and purpose,” 80 cast and crew members said in a statement to CNN. “We are shocked by the drastic re-writes of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred.”

“It was going to be a film based on how things were 2,000 years ago,” actor Cindy Lee Garcia told Gawker. “It wasn’t based on anything to do with religion, it was just on how things were run in Egypt. There wasn’t anything about Muhammed or Muslims or anything.”