LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Family members of a California man linked to an anti-Islam film that triggered violent protests across the Muslim world went into hiding yesterday, with sheriff’s deputies escorting them from their home to an undisclosed location, authorities said.
The family of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, was accompanied from their two-story stucco house in the Los Angeles suburb of Cerritos before dawn yesterday, Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said.
“They are gone,” Whitmore said, adding that deputies gave the family a ride to an undisclosed location to meet Nakoula, who left the home voluntarily on Saturday to be interviewed by federal authorities and has not returned.
Whitmore said he did not know where Nakoula and his family were headed but they were not expected to return to the home in Cerritos, which has been besieged by the media for nearly a week.
“It’s not our concern anymore at all,” Whitmore said.
The 13-minute English-language movie, which was circulated on the Internet under several titles including Innocence of Muslims, mocks the Prophet Mohammad and portrays him as a buffoon.
