The filmmaker behind the amateurish anti-Islam film that sparked violent protests around the world has gone into hiding.
Late last night US federal authorities questioned Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a 55-year-old Egyptian-born Coptic Christian who lives in California, for half an hour about "Innocence Of Muslims", which mocks the prophet Muhammad.
He did not return home afterwards and authorities do not know where he is.
Meanwhile the first photo has emerged of Nakoula, who was named by the FBI as the filmmaker behind "Innocence Of Muslims".
The photo shows Nakoula sitting on a couch on-set with the film's young star, actress Anna Gurji, who claims she was duped and now fears for her life.
The director of the film has also been unmasked as Alan Roberts, a 65-year-old director of soft porn titles such as "The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood" and "Young Lady Chatterley II," according to Gawker.
Federal authorities say Nakoula was "given a ride" from his Los Angeles home to the interview shortly after midnight on Saturday local time, with investigators seeking to establish if he broke the terms of his probation over a bank fraud conspiracy, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Don Walker told AFP.
He later emerged from the police station wearing a coat, hat, scarf and glasses. Officers dropped Nakoula off at an undisclosed location.
He did not return to his home, where media are camped outside, and has since gone into hiding, The Associated Press reports.
"He is gone," another spokesman for the sheriff’s office told the AP. "We don't know where he went. He said he is not going back to his home."
Nakoula, who has previously admitted uploading the 14-minute trailer to "Innocence of Muslims" on the Internet, was convicted in 2010 of defrauding US banks by opening false accounts and passing bad cheques, court documents show. He served one year before being released on probation.
As part of his release terms, he was forbidden from using computers or the Internet for five years and ordered to pay more than $790,000 in restitution.
Gawker interviewed members of the cast of "Innocence of Muslims," who say they were duped into appearing in what they thought was a fictional epic, only to discover their lines had been dubbed over with anti-Muslim propaganda.
Roberts's casting call lists the leading roles as George, Condalisa and Hillary. But in the finished version the script was doctored to make them represent the prophet and key figures from the Koran.
Ms Gurji, who plays Muhammad's child bride, has said she feels betrayed by Nakoula.
"I was playing the youngest bride of a character named George," the 21-year-old was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying. "I had no idea George would be changed to Muhammad. I'm locked up in my house. I'm terrified people in the Middle East will blame me."
The film, produced by a US religious group called Media for Christ, was promoted by a network of right-wing Coptic and Evangelical Christians with a radical anti-Muslim agenda, such as Egyptian American provocateur Morris Sadek and Terry Jones, a Florida pastor notorious for publicly burning a Koran.
Acting as "consultant" was Steve Klein, a Vietnam veteran and founder of Courageous Christians United who is notorious for protests outside mosques and Mormon temples and who told AFP he helped the moviemakers.
The film itself does not appear to have broken any US laws, but Nakoula may have breached the rules governing his conditional release from prison.
"The matter is under review," said a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the US Courts.
This week saw Nakoula move from anonymous petty criminal to being a key figure in a global furore that has triggered mass protests in Muslim-majority countries in North Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia, and seen several US diplomatic missions attacked.
The US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed in a well-coordinated attack last Tuesday in the eastern city of Benghazi.
Nakoula earlier gave an interview to Radio Sawa, a US-government station that broadcasts in Arabic.
"I am the one who leaked the 14 minutes and put it on the Internet and I am thinking about releasing the full film. Nobody manipulated my film," he said.
The film's depiction of Mohammed as a thuggish deviant offended many Muslims. The deadly anti-American protests have seen mobs burn US missions, schools and businesses.
According to Paul Audley, president of Film LA, which issues filming permits in Los Angeles, a group called Media for Christ was issued a one-day shooting licence in August 2011 for a film with the working title "Desert Warriors."
"I do know personally for having looked at it, before it was withdrawn, that the producer's name on it is Sam Bossil," he said in an interview.
Bossil is believed to be one of the pseudonyms used by Nakoula, who uploaded the clip as "Sam Bacile."
A man identifying himself as Sam Bacile gave interviews to US media this week in which he claimed to be an Israeli-American Jew who made the film to help Israel, but a consultant on the movie has since debunked this claim.
