A Cairo court on Wednesday sentenced to death seven Egyptian Christians tried in absentia for participating in an anti-Islam video that was released on the Internet in September and prompted violent protests in Muslim countries, according to a report by the Huffington Post.
“The seven accused persons were convicted of insulting the Islamic religion through participating in producing and offering a movie that insults Islam and its prophet,” Judge Saif al-Nasr Soliman said.
The low-budget video, produced privately in California, denigrated the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and triggered anti-US protests and attacks on Western embassies around the Muslim world. The convicted persons included Egyptian-American Nakoula Bassely Nakoula, who is currently serving a one-year-jail term in Los Angeles after an American court convicted him of probation violations that stemmed from his role in the movie. The cast members of the 13-minute video have said they were misled into appearing in a film they believed was an adventure drama called “Desert Warrior.” Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church did not issue an official comment on the ruling.