Before he was involved in the making of a noxious video that provided an excuse for anti-American riots in the Middle East, and before he was convicted of federal bank fraud, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was arrested on charges relating to the making of angel dust.
Court records reviewed by Danger Room show that Nakoula and a co-defendant were brought before the Los Angeles County Superior Courthouse in Downey, California on April 15, 1997. They were charged with possessing the narcotic’s chemical precursors with “the intent to manufacture phencyclidine,” otherwise known as angel dust or PCP.
In the latest in a series of odd revelations about the man thought to be at center of a viral video, “The Innocence of Muslims,” which has been publicly seized upon by people in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia as a reason to attack U.S. embassies. At least four American government employees have been killed during the confrontations. And that’s brought enormous scrutiny to Nakoula, an Egyptian immigrant and gas station owner, who has alternatively confirmed and denied a role in the making of “Innocence.”
In recent days, we’ve learned that Nakoula used 14 different aliases — including “P.J. Tobacco” and “Kritbag Difrat” — in a complex check kiting scheme. We’ve learned that Nakoula was sentenced to 21 months in federal custody for the affair. According to The Smoking Gun, Nakoula was releasedfrom the the United States Penitentiary in Lompoc, California in September, 2010. He spent the following nine months in and out of a halfway house in Long Beach. Unnamed officials tell ABC News he wrote the script for the film, which depicts the prophet Muhammad as a thug and a child molester,while in prison.
The punishment was relatively gentle, even though it wasn’t Nakoula’s first encounter with the law. That’s because Nakoula had decided to become a federal informant.
“I am sorry for what happened. Now I know it was wrong. I decide to cooperate with the government to retrieve some of those mistakes,” Nakoula told Judge Christina Snyder in June of 2010, according to a sentencing transcript obtained by The Smoking Gun.
The man Nakoula agreed to help the feds catch was Eiad Salameh, the ringleader of the check kiting scheme and “a notorious fraudster who has been tracked for more than a decade by state and federal investigators,” the Smoking Gun says. “In his debriefings, Nakoula said he was recruited as a ‘runner’ by Salameh, who pocketed the majority of money generated by the bank swindles.”
Because of the promised help, because of his many ailments (including Hepatitis C and diabetes) and maybe because of a friendly letter from a friend calling Nakoula “a God-fearing man whose first priority is his family,” Bakoula was sentenced to just 21 months in prison.
That’s in spie of his previous arrests. In August of 1991, he was convicted on two counts of selling watered-down gasoline. And then came the arrest for PCP manufacturing in 1997. A local judge found there was probable cause for the case to continue against Nakoula and a co-defendant, Khaled Yameen Abraham, on August 6th of that year. Nakoula and Abraham were also briefly charged with conspiracy.
Three months later, Abraham was convicted on the PCP charge. Nakoula, on the other hand, was not. Nearly five years later, the case against him was dismissed, for reasons unknown.
According to The Daily Beast, Nakoula and Abraham weren’t just attempting to make PCP. The news site claims that the pair were arrested for trying to mass-produce methamphetamine. Nakoula was arrested on March 27, 1997, according to the Beast, with $45,000 in hundreds and twenties in a paper lunch bag on the seat beside him. Abraham’s house in Lake Elsinore contained 30 boxes of pseudoephedrine, meth’s central ingredient. Another 99 cases were allegedly found at the storage facility. Danger Room hasn’t been able to confirm this account. But it’s entirely possible that Abraham and Nakoula were simultaneously busted for being both PCP and meth makers.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2202080/Who-Sam-Bacile-Identity-man-anti-Mohammed-film-crumbles-records-found.html#ixzz26bzZf2Sx
| Humayun Saqib Muazzam Khan Captain, United States Army |
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| NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense No. 561-04 IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 9, 2004 Media Contact: Army Public Affairs – (703) 692-2000 Public/Industry Contact: (703) 428-0711 DoD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Captain Humayun S. M. Khan, 27, of Bristow, Virginia, died June 8, 2004, in Baquabah, Iraq, after a vehicle packed with an improvised explosive device drove into the gate of his compound while he was inspecting soldiers on guard duty. Khan was assigned to Headquarters, Headquarters Company, 201st Forward Support Battalion, 1st Infantry Division, Vilseck, Germany. The incidents are under investigation. For further information related to this release, contact Army Public Affairs at (703) 692-2000. Funeral For Pakistani-American U.S. Army Officer Held DCM Mohammad Sadiq and interns from the Embassy of Pakistan Tuesday evening attended the funeral of Captain Humayun Saqib Khan held at the Arlington National Cemetery, says an Embassy press release. He was laid to rest with full military honors. Captain Khan was a Pakistani American who served in the U.S. army as an ordnance officer, being the senior-most community member to die in Iraq. His colleagues and superiors remembered him for his courage, honesty, sense of humor and grace while in the field, even under pressure. Captain Khan’s colleagues eulogized his exemplary services and praised him for the leadership he provided to his troops. The Muslim chaplain who led the Nimaz-e-Janaza after the military honors, specifically highlighted the ethnically-diverse group that had come to pay its respects to Captain Khan. He was one amongst the growing number of Pakistani Americans in the U.S. Army. A ‘Peacemaker’ Is Laid to Rest Army Captain Humayun Khan tried to reassure his parents in Prince William County, Maryland, that he was safe — even though attacks on his base in Baquba, Iraq, were almost constant. “Whenever I talked to him, I started to cry,” said his mother, Ghazala Khan, 52. “He always said to me, ‘Don’t worry. I’m safe.’ “ The last time she spoke to her 27-year-old son was Mother’s Day, May 9. Yesterday, under the hot midday sun, she and her husband, Khizr M. Khan, 53, watched as their middle son was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. Khan’s was the 66th casualty of the Iraq war to be buried on the cemetery’s lush, manicured hills. His flag-draped wood coffin was placed at the end of a row of marble headstones. On June 8, Khan died in a suicide car bombing at the main gates of his base. Khan, an ordnance officer with the Germany-based 201st Forward Support Battalion, 1st Infantry Division, had watched as several of his soldiers prepared to do a routine vehicle inspection. His unit was charged with the day-to-day security and maintenance of the camp. When an orange-colored taxi drove toward them, Khan ordered his soldiers to “hit the dirt,” said his father, who received details of his son’s death from his commanding officer. Khan walked toward the car, motioning for it to stop, his father said. A makeshift bomb inside it exploded, killing him and two Iraqi civilians in addition to the two suicide bombers. Ten soldiers and six Iraqi citizens were also wounded, the Army said. Khan’s father said he is proud of his son’s courage but is devastated by the loss. “Where did his strength come from to face such a danger instead of hiding behind a pole or booth or something?” his father said. “Normally we would try to hide. Had he done that, there would be no problem at all. It may have not been fatal.” Family members and friends — including Khan’s girlfriend, Irene Auer, 24, of Amberg, Germany — have filled the Khans’ Bristow home in the past week, weeping and praying for the Muslim soldier they will remember as helping to build a bridge between the American and Iraqi people. During his three months in Iraq, Khan helped put Iraqi civilians to work for $5 an hour patrolling the streets of Baquba under the U.S. Army, his father said. The program, dubbed the United States-Iraq Sponsorship Program, was intended to help combat high unemployment and provide the local population with security and peace, his father said. “He was always a peacemaker,” Khizr Khan said, “always seeing an opportunity to give. He always said to the Iraqis, ‘We’re here not to hurt you but to help you.’ “ Auer said her boyfriend enjoyed taking responsibility for others and always respected those around him. “Whenever I was upset, he always found the right words. He always calmed me down,” she said. “He was perfect. He was the most wonderful person I’ve ever met.” Khan had hoped one day to go to the University of Virginia law school, his father said. He wanted to be a military lawyer and joined up four years ago in part to pay for law school. His stint was up last month, but because of the Army’s efforts to stem its manpower losses, he was assigned to Iraq indefinitely. Khan, who was born in the United Arab Emirates, moved to Silver Spring at age 2. He graduated from Kennedy High School in 1996 and the University of Virginia in 2000. Yesterday, he received full military honors. Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Kerr, an Army chaplain, read a letter written by Khan’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Dan Mitchell. “He died selflessly and courageously, tackling the enemy head on,” Mitchell wrote. “We will not forget him and the noble ideas he stood for.” Khan was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Sergeant First Class Robert J. Mogensen of Leesville, Louisiana, was also buried yesterday at Arlington. He was a member of the Army’s Special Forces who was killed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on May 29, 2004. His funeral was closed to the media, cemetery officials said.
KHAN, HUMAYUN SAQIB MUAZZAM Webmaster: Michael Robert Patterson Posted: 16 June 2004 Updated: 4 December 2004 Updated: 21 August 2005 Updated: 18 December 2005 Updated: 13 May 2008 Updated: 11 October 2008 |
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Photo By Michael Robert Patterson, May 2008
Photo By M. R. Patterson, 2 December 2004
Family members of slain American Muslim soldiers should testify at Rep. Pete King’s hearings
Written by MICHAEL DALY DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
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The first witnesses at Rep. Peter King’s hearings on Muslims in America should be the family and comrades of Army Spec. Azhar Ali of Queens.
The witnesses could recount how Ali came to America from Pakistan when he was 14 and died at 27 serving his country in Iraq as a member of New Yorks famous Fighting 69th.
The father, Mubarak Ali, could repeat for the House Homeland Security Committee what he said as he stood beside his son’s plain wood coffin in the Islamic Burial funeral parlor in Queens that March day in 2005.
“When I heard he was going to Iraq for America, I was proud…He died for a great cause.”
The father could also recount how he and his wife were presented at the graveside with a folded flag of their son’s adopted country along with four medals, including a Bronze Star.
The presiding imam, Zameer Sattaur, could recite the prayer he offered, the words springing from the true heart of Islam.
“The purpose of life is to do good …”
The chaplain the Army sent to the funeral, Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, a colonel in the reserves and prominent member of the Hassidic community in Crown Heights, could testify that the imam invited him to give a graveside prayer.
A host of comrades could testify to Ali’s courage and devotion to duty. Sgt. Adrian Melendez could speak of how Ali was among those who rescued him after an IED attack.
“He died a great soldier,” Melendez has said of Ali and would surely say so again.
Other witnesses could tell the committee of Army Special Forces Staff Sgt. Ayman Taha of Virginia, who was killed in Iraq in 2006 and of Army Cpl. Kareem Khan of New Jersey, who was killed there in 2007.
Both received the Bronze Star. Both have headstones with crescent stars rather than crosses at Arlington National Cemetery, with a good view of the Capitol and the Cannon House office building, where King will hold his hearing.
If Taha’s father were asked to testify, he would no doubt note anew that his son was a devout Muslim who embraced the same principle set forth by the imam’s prayer beside Ali’s coffin.
The father, Abdel-Rahman Taha, has said that his son felt Islam’s essential message was “to believe in God and do good deeds…
“He believed what he was doing there was the good deeds Islam is asking for.”
Khan’s father is on record saying of his son, “His Muslim faith did not make him not want to go. It never stopped him.”
Feroze Khan added, “He looked at it that he’s American and he has a job to do.”
As recorded below the crescent star on his tombstone, Kareem Khan was born in 1987, which means he was just 14 on 9/11. He became and remained determined to demonstrate that only a tiny minority of Muslims are America-hating extremists.
Khan no sooner graduated high school in 2005 than he was taking his first plane ride, to begin basic training. He was in Iraq a year later and was to come home when his tour was extended. He voiced no complaint.
Let the committee record show that he was only 20 when he died, demonstrating that you can be a devout Muslim and give all anybody of any faith can give to America.
Let the committee take care how it proceeds, for to stoke prejudice against all Muslims is to dishonor the memory of Khan and Taha and Ali and the others of their faith who have made the supreme sacrifice in this long war.
To dishonor them is to dishonor the country King says he’s defending.
