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"Burn a Qu'ran" pastor backed the film that sparked carnage

The film that led to the killing of Libya's US ambassador was financed by Terry Jones, the pastor globally condemned for his "Burn a Qu'ran" stunt.
Burn a Qu'ran pastor backed the film that sparked carnage
Published: September 13, 2012 06:04 AM GMT
Updated: September 13, 2012 06:05 AM GMT

Terry Jones, the crackpot Florida pastor who promised to burn the Koran on the anniversary of 9/11 in 2010, promoted the low-budget, anti-Muhammad film that sparked riots and triggered the killing of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens on Tuesday. Known as "Innocence of Muslims" or "Muhammad, Prophet of the Muslims," the incendiary flick depicts Muhammad, Islam's holiest prophet, as a thuggish womanizer, and Muslims as homosexuals, child molesters and madmen. Jones defended the film, produced by amateur moviemaker Sam Bacile, and showed a trailer of it on Tuesday, which he dubbed "International Judge Mohammed Day," The Orlando Sentinel reported. "The fact that angry protesters climbed the wall at the U.S. embassy in Cairo today, ripped down the American flag and tore it apart further indicated the lack of respect that Islam has for any other religion," Jones said in the statement. "Islam is a religion that is totally incompatible with Western free society." On Wednesday, a source told Reuters that a top U.S. military official contacted Jones and urged him to stop supporting the film. Outrage over the film swept the Middle East and led to the killings of four diplomats in Libya, including U.S. ambassador Stevens. Stevens, 52, was killed in Benghazi when the American embassy there was hit with a fusillade of rocket-propelled grenades. Thousands of angry protesters also stormed the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. Chanting “We are all Osama,” the mob tore down the U.S. flag there and replaced it with a black Islamic one. President Obama condemned the “senseless violence,” noting that Stevens “helped save the city” in which he was killed, referring to the envoy’s work in Libya's second-largest city during the fall of Moammar Gadhafi last spring. “The United States condemns in the strongest terms this outrageous and shocking attack,” Obama said in a Rose Garden address on Tuesday, flanked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Republican Mitt Romney slammed President Obama for “a lack of clarity on foreign policy” and criticized the White House for an apology issued from the embassy in Cairo after protesters first gathered there. "An apology for America's values is never the right course,” Romney said. The Obama administration said it did not authorize the apology, which the embassy later withdrew. Romney came under fire for the remarks but held his ground, insisting that the President was "sending mixed signals to the world." Bacile, meanwhile, a shady figure who identified himself as an Israeli Jew and a California real estate developer, said he had no idea his film would cause such furor and has gone into hiding. Jones, though, wasn’t sorry. In a video announcing “International Judge Muhammad Day,” on Tuesday, he wore a shirt with the word “Infidel” printed in Arabic on it, The Tampa Bay Times reported. Full Story:This guy again? Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones backs anti-Muhammad movieSource:New York Daily NewsSee also: Reaction to anti-Islam film fuels debate on free speech versus hate speechInflammatory Anti-Muslim “Movie” May Not Be A Real Movie

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