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Family Of Man Behind Anti-Islam Video Flees Home

In the pre-dawn hours today the wife, two sons and daughter of the man most prominently linked to the anti-Islam video that has sparked violence in many Muslim cities fled their home in Cerritos, Calif.

Only a reporter from the local Patch.com website and one TV photographer were there to see Cerritos Sheriff's deputies escort Nakoula Basseley Nakoula's family away. As Patch.com adds, that's "not quite the spectacle" that occurred Friday night when Nakoula himself left the home, his head cloaked to hide his face from the dozens of reporters and camera crews stationed outside.

Where the family has gone is unknown.

Nakoula has now been identified by multiple news outlets as (in NBC News' words) the "key figure" behind Innocence of Muslims. He's also, as Eyder reported last week, a convicted felon who spent 21 months in a federal prison on bank fraud charges.

Another detail that news outlets are reporting is that (as Patch.com puts it) Nakoula is "a naturalized U.S. citizen of Egyptian descent and a Coptic Christian."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.

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