Upon the release from prison of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula — the film director whose trailer for his anti-Muslim film sparked protests in the Middle East and was originally thought to have played a role in the deaths of four Americans — WorldNetDaily’s Bob Unruh fired softball questions at him, uncritically letting Nakoula claim that he made the film “Innocence of Muslims” “to warn America about the threat of Islamic jihad.”
It seems, however, that Unruh did not ask him about allegations by the film’s actors that Nakoula deceived them about the nature of the flim. One actress told the Hollywood Reporter that the original script the actors followed was much different from the finished product, in which the actors’ voices were redubbed to make it an anti-Muslim film. That, in turn, put the actors’ live in danger, fearing reprisals for their parts in a film they were deceived about.
Unruh makes a big deal out of claiming that Nakoula’s film “garnered global attention when Obama blamed it for upsetting Muslims in Benghazi, who then attacked the Americans,” though “the White House knew immediately that the Benghazi incident was an organized terror strike, not a random act of violence by an out-of-control mob of Muslims.” Unruh doesn’t mention that the film did, in fact, spark riots in the Mideast and elsewhere. The Week reported that protests occurred in more than 20 countries, killing at least 10 people.
Unruh quotes Nakoula lamely stating that “I want to apologize for any inconvenience or misunderstanding about my movie,” without any mention of what exactly he might have been apologizing for, or that death is slightly more than an “inconvenience.”
Unruh also repeats an unsubstantiated claim by the father of one of the Benghazi victims that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “vowed that the person who made the video would be arrested and prosecuted.” Unruh offers no evidence that the alleged Clinton statement has ever been verified.
Unruh rehashed much of his article the next day, adding that “Those who wish to contact Nakoula can respond to media@wnd.com.” Does that mean we can ask Nakoula about how he deceived his actors and overdubbed the original script without telling them? Because Unruh certainly isn’t going to ask that question.