By Jonathan Kent BBC correspondent in Kuala Lumpur

Ba'asyir suggested the confessions had been extracted under torture

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.

The Bali attacks killed 202 people

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.