A U.S. appeals court in San Francisco has ordered Google to remove from YouTube “Innocence of Muslims,” the anti-Islam film the Obama administration initially blamed for the 2012 killing of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.
A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected Google’s assertion that an order to remove the film violated the First Amendment, Reuters reported.
Plaintiff Cindy Lee Garcia complained that a clip she made for a different movie was used in “Innocence of Muslims,” and the clip had been partially dubbed over to make it seem like she’s saying, “Is your Mohammed a child molester?”
Miss Garcia said she was tricked by Director Mark Basseley Youssef into appearing in the film. She said the script she saw referenced neither Muslims nor Mohammad, the Associated Press reported.
The court said Miss Garcia owned the rights to her performance because she thought it was for a different film.
Miss Garcia’s lawyer, Cris Armenta, said her client is delighted with the decision.
“Ordering YouTube and Google to take down the film was the right thing to do,” Miss Armenta said. “The propaganda film differs so radically from anything that Ms. Garcia could have imagined when the director told her that she was being cast in the innocent adventure film.”
The controversial film — depicting Mohammad as a religious fraud, pedophile and womanizer — sparked a wave of anti-American protests that swept across the Middle East in late 2012.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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