BBC World News, Friday, 2 April, 2004, 18:43 GMT
Bin Laden 'ordered' Bali attacks
By Jonathan Kent, BBC correspondent in Kuala Lumpur
A self-confessed member of the group behind the Bali and Jakarta bombs has said
his leaders received orders from Osama Bin Laden to attack Americans.
Mohamed Nasir Abbas told Malaysian TV the edict was distributed by Islamic cleric
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir whom he calls the emir of the Jemaah Islamiah group.
Ba'asyir, due to leave jail in Indonesia this month, denies leading JI.
The interview, taped in an Indonesian prison, is billed as the confessions of four
Malaysian members of the group.
Abbas said the Bali bombers had acted on a fatwa, or edict, from Bin Laden.
It had instructed members of the group to take revenge on Americans for US
persecution of Muslims, he said, and had allowed for the killing of civilians, women,
children and the elderly.
He said that Ba'asyir and Hambali, the alleged mastermind behind the Bali bombing,
had distributed the fatwa.
Another interviewee said he had recruited two alleged explosives experts being sought
in connection with the Bali and Jakarta bombings and a third said he had helped
provide explosives for the Christmas 2000 church attacks in Indonesia.
Speaking by phone from his cell, Ba'asyir told journalists he believed the four men had
been tortured.
Human rights groups in Malaysia say they fear the statements were the result of
coercion.
The programme appeared to have been carefully staged.
One interviewee praised the Malaysian government for helping Muslims in areas of
conflict around south-east Asia. All four said they now regretted having been involved
in the militant group.
Published: 2004/04/02 18:43:45 GMT
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