the man who translated the film into Arabic, sent it to Egyptian journalists, promoted it on his website and posted it on social media was an obscure Egyptian-born Coptic Christian who lives near Washington and proudly touts his ties to Jones.

Morris Sadek describes himself as a human rights attorney and president of a small group called the National American Coptic Assembly, based in Chantilly, Va. Sadek says on his website that he is a member of the Egyptian and Washington, D.C. bar associations who has "defended major human rights cases" including the late Coptic Pope Shenouda III, who died in March.

But fellow Copts depict Sadek as a fringe figure and publicity hound whose Islamophobic invectives disrupt Copts' quest for equal religious rights in Egypt.

"Mr. Sadek is a maverick who belongs to a very narrow extreme current of Coptic activists," the Washington-based group Coptic Solidarity said in a statement. "He likes to use inflammatory and abrasive language to insult Muslims and Islam. As his actions agitate more the Islamic extremists, some people wonder if he is not in fact working to fulfill their agenda."