A court in Egypt has reportedly sentenced to death seven Christians for taking part in an anti-Islam film Innocence of Muslims, which caused international riots when it was released on YouTube.
Reuters reported Judge Saif al-Nasr Soliman convicted them all in absentia, saying: "The seven accused persons were convicted of insulting the Islamic religion through participating in producing and offering a movie that insults Islam and its prophet," Judge Saif al-Nasr Soliman said.
Violence broke out in Benghazi and the Egyptian capital Cairo apparently over the film
The low-budget, crude film, insulting to the Prophet Mohammed, is believed to have been made by an Egyptian Coptic Christian Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.
Actors said they had been duped into believing they were making a movie about "Master George", and not the Prophet Muhammad.
The woefully amateur film depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a homosexual who endorses extramarital sex and paedophilia.
The YouTube film sparked worldwide protests from London to Cairo and Benghazi, and were said to have been the reason behind the killing of the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, although experts later said it had been a planned terror attack on the embassy.