Maker of anti-Islam film jailed a year for breaching probation
Director behind video that provoked fury across Muslim world to serve another year behind bars after violating his probation
The man behind the anti-Islam video blamed for sparking deadly protests in the Muslim world has been jailed in the US for a year for breaching the terms of his probation for a previous offence.
Mark Basseley Youssef, 55, will serve the sentence in a federal prison after admitting four charges of using false identities - a violation of the terms of his probation for a fraud conviction in 2010. He had faced up to two years' jail, but four other charges were dropped in a plea deal.
Youssef was identified as the main man behind Innocence of Muslims, an amateurish film depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a thuggish deviant. It triggered a wave of violent protests that left dozens dead in September.
The video was linked to the September 11 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi in which envoy Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed.
In 2009, a federal indictment accused Youssef and others of fraudulently obtaining the identities and Social Security numbers of customers at several Wells Fargo branches in California and withdrawing US$860 from them. He was jailed for 21 months and ordered not to use computers or the internet for five years without authorisation, and also banned from using fictitious names during his supervised release.
Youssef was arrested in September for eight probation violations. At a hearing last month he denied all counts, but on Wednesday he admitted four, in return for the others being set aside.
US District Judge Christina Snyder said Youssef, who has already spent five weeks in custody, must spend 12 months behind bars, followed by four years of supervised release.