The filmmaker who directed the movie that triggered Muslim fury and cost the US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens his life, has remained defiant.

Sam Bacile, 56, who wrote and directed the movie that led protesters to attack the US consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi in which four people died, said he wanted his film to be a provocative political statement condemning Islam.

"Islam is a cancer, period," he said from an undisclosed location where he went into hiding after the protests began.

"This is a political movie. The US lost a lot of money and a lot of people in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but we're fighting with ideas," he told Associated Press.

The two-hour movie, titled Innocence of Muslims, claims Mohammed was a fraud.

In a 13-minute trailer posted on YouTube the Prophet is depicted as an illegitimate son and feckless philanderer who approved of child sexual abuse.

Early Muslims are presented as violent and ignorant, slavishly following the Prophet.

According to Islam's most profound tenets it is offensive to depict the Prophet in any way.

The movie, which cost $5m, was funded by more than 100 Jewish donors, the Washington Post reported.

Bacile, an Israeli Jew real estate developer, shot the movie last year in California with a cast of 59 actors and 40 crew.

He said he believed the movie would help fellow Americans by exposing Islam's "flaws".

The movie was also being promoted by American preacher Terry Jones, who sparked worldwide riots after burning a copy of the Koran in 2010, and by an Egyptian-American Copt, Morris Sadek, who is linked to the controversial preacher and who advertised the movie on his Arab-langauge blog.

"It is an American production, not designed to attack Muslims but to show the destructive ideology of Islam. The movie further reveals in a satirical fashion the life of Mohammed," Jones said.

Protesters angered over Bacile's film stormed the US diplomatic missions in Cairo and Benghazi, killing four people, including the US ambassador

The director said he was sorry for the deaths caused as a result of the outrage over his film but blamed negligent embassy security and the perpetrators of the violence.

"I feel the security system [at the embassies] is no good. America should do something to change it," Bacile said.

Steve Klein, a consultant of the film, said the director was aware of the possible unrest that his movie would have caused.

"We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen," he said.

He said he warned Bacile he was going to end up like Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker who was killed by a Muslim extremist after directing a movie perceived as anti-Islamic.

Is Innocence of Muslims' Director Sam Bacile a US Coptic Christian Called Nakoula Basseley Nakoula?

UPDATE 14 September 2012: This report was based on information supplied by the Asssociated Press and published in good faith. However, subsequent events have revealed that Sam Bacile, aka Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, is neither Jewish nor Israeli