Prominent Pakistani minister Ikramullah Shahid is the second minister in the past nine days to place a bounty on Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who is said to be the master-mind behind the anti-Islamist film "Innocence of Muslims."
The former lawmaker has placed a $200,000 bounty on the person who kills Nakoula. A senior religious leader, Siraj Ul Haq, confirmed the announcement to CNN.
Nine days ago, Pakistani Railway Minister, Ghulam Ahmad Bilour also placed a personal bounty of $100,000 on the alleged filmmaker. Bilour, according to reports by CNN, has urged Taliban or al-Qaida leaders to kill the 55-year-old man.
The film, "Innocence of Muslims," was posted on various Internet sites, including YouTube, was the primary cause of the violent attacks on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi resulting in the death of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other American staff members. Within days after the attack, a number of violent outbursts across the Muslim world from Egypt to Afghanistan and Indonesia to Pakistan.
The movie was initially said to be made by an Israeli-American named Sam Bacile. Bacile is 52 years old and works as a real-estate developer according to the Wall Street Journal. Bacile told the WSJ, "Islam is a cancer," he said in a telephone interview from his home. "The movie is a political movie. It's not a religious movie." However, recent reports suggest that Sam Bacile was merely an alias name. Later the man was identified as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.
In the latest development, last week Nakoula told a court judge that his real name was actually Mark Basseley Youseff as reported by the Associated Press.
Nakoula (Youseff) was taken into a California court last week for violating probation for a bank fraud conviction in 2010. The 55-year-old told the court that that Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was yet another alias name he used and that his real name was Mark Basseley Youseff.
Stevens was the US ambassador to Libya since June 2012. He was 52. Sean Smith has, a US veteran of the State Department has been identified as one of the other three who were killed in the attacks. The remaining two have yet to be identified.
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