As always, they are dead serious.

Via MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian actor Hassan, Youssef, a personal friend of Sheik Al-Qaradhawi, which aired on Dream 2 TV on September 28, 2013:

Hassan Youssef: The Al-Qaradhawi I know is dead. Israel is capable of anything. That’s a double, it’s not him.

Interviewer: I like it when you use cinema talk… A double is someone who takes a beating instead of the real hero…

Hassan Youssef: I am angry at him – if it is really him. But I am very angry that he is being cursed on all the TV channels. One gets angry when his friend is cursed.

Sheik Al-Qaradhawi is very moderate, and is not an extremist. That is why I cannot believe my ears.

Interviewer: He shocked you. When you say that the Sheik Al-Qaradhawi you know is dead, and you even suspect that Israel has planted a chip in his brain – which is a metaphoric way of saying that it has taken control over his mind…

Hassan Youssef: It’s not a metaphor. Let me give you an example. King Faisal’s nephew, who assassinated him… King Faisal was a great monarch, who stood by Egypt in the 1973 war, and was one of the principal reasons for Israel’s defeat. He said [to the West]: “We are used to desert life. We have no problem living in tents, drinking goat milk, and eating dates. We don’t want anything from you. Don’t want anything from you. Don’t take our oil. Goodbye.”

How can someone kill his own uncle? He met a Jewish woman abroad and fell in love with her. She took him to Israel, where they operated on him and planted a chip in his brain, and they remote-controlled him, until he killed his uncle.

Interviewer: So what happened to him?

Hassan Youssef: It’s a double. Or a chip. There can be no other explanation. But I advise his sons, who I know very well, to have him declared legally incompetent, if this is due to a disease.