When Eleanor Hall interviewed Pastor Terry Jones about the US-made film that sparked violent protests in Libya, she did not expect such a chilling response to human tragedy.

It was one of those interviews. I emerged from the studio feeling uneasy with the coldness and lack of compassion exhibited by the pastor from Florida.

The World Today's producer and sound engineer - who had been listening to the interview - felt equally uncomfortable.

The news had hit late the night before that Chris Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya, had been killed in mob violence at the Consulate in Benghazi.

The violence was apparently sparked by Libyan Muslims venting their anger over a US-made film about the Prophet Mohammed. It is still unclear exactly how staff at the Consulate were killed and by whom.

We wanted to find out who was behind the film that - intentionally or not - had provoked the violent protests in Libya and Egypt. When we held our editorial meeting that morning rumours were flying that the film maker was not who he claimed to be and had gone into hiding.

We did locate one person who claimed a clear connection to the film, although he was adamant he and his church did not fund it. That person was Pastor Terry Jones, the head of a small fundamentalist church in Florida who you'll remember as the priest who made headlines around the world with his plan to burn the Koran on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Pastor Jones had links to the film and the film maker.

"(I have spoken with the film maker) several times and he desired for us to promote the film ... because of our involvement with raising awareness of radical Islam."

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, has called on the pastor to withdraw his support for the film.

Pastor Jones confirmed the General had asked him not to go ahead with his plans to screen the film to his Florida congregation. The General was concerned that supporting the film would inflame tensions in Afghanistan, where 74,000 US troops are still fighting.

However Pastor Jones says he has not made up his mind how to respond. He has already shown the trailer and is leaning toward not showing the film.

Like me, you may assume that this was because this religious leader did not want to risk further deadly violence. But no.

"What I told him was that I would watch the film, I would review the film and taking consideration of course of what he said ... and evaluate whether or not showing the film would be productive.

"At this particular time I definitely lean towards not showing the film because I think through the actions that we have done and as I said we have shown the trailer I believe that we have again showed the world that Islam is not a religion of peace."

What did he mean by "productive"? This sounded to me like a decision based not a desire to minimise the risk of any further violence, but on the assumption that there was little point in showing the full film when the 13-minute trailer had already accomplished the mission to expose what he regarded as the violence of Islam.

So I asked him whether it was his intention to incite violence?

"It was definitely not our intention to incite violence. It was also not our intention through the film to show the radical element of Islam. It was our intention to reveal that Islam has and indeed it does have (and the fruits are obvious), it has a violent past. That Islam ... has a very violent element and foundation in its religion."

He also said that he did not expect to be charged with inciting violence but said that "freedom of speech is not always pleasant".

What I found chilling about this interview was that the pastor seemed incapable of seeing a human tragedy in the deaths that had occurred. Instead, he viewed the deaths as a vindication of his views on Islam.

Here is his answer to my question about the death of the US ambassador:

"I mean, I think this is a typical Islamic or let's say radical Islamic reaction. As we know they do not tolerate criticism of the Koran, or the Prophet Mohammad or even Sharia law."

Of course a response like this from someone with this pastor's history is hardly surprising.

But this interview did lead to some frantic editorial caucusing in the ABC in the hour before the World Today went to air. There were arguments on both sides: were we giving an extremist a platform he didn't deserve or was he a player in a major story whose views our audience deserved to hear and be able to judge?

I conducted an 11 minute interview with Pastor Jones. We decided to run less than 5 minutes of it.

You may think we shouldn't have given him any air time at all.

Eleanor Hall is the host of the ABC's The World Today program. View her full profile here.