The California man behind the “Innocence of Muslims” movie that triggered violence in the Middle East was sentenced to death Wednesday in absentia in an Egyptian court.
Mark Basseley Youssef was among the seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Florida-based American pastor sentenced on charges linked to the low-budget, anti-Islam film, the Associated Press reported.
The case was seen as largely symbolic because the defendants, most of whom live in the United States, are all outside Egypt and unlikely to ever serve the sentences, the wire service reported.
Youssef, who also used the alias Nakoula Basseley Nikoula, among other names, was sentenced in a California court this month to one year in federal prison for probation violations on a bank fraud case.
