LONDON ~ Two men who played key roles in the 2002 bombing of Bali said in an interview published Sunday that Al Qaeda had not funded their attacks.

The pair – Imam Samudra and Ali Ghufron – also told The Sunday Times from their prison cells that they had not meant to kill as many people as the 202 who died.

“The money came from other people,” Samudra told the newspaper, when asked whether Al Qaeda had paid for the bombing.

“Some try to make a link between Al Qaeda and us. Now, I don’t know about this. We are not linked. The only link is iman (faith) and aqida (teachings).”

Ali Ghufron, meanwhile, added: “I collected it (funds) from supporters in Malaysia and Indonesia.”

Samudra also told the newspaper that it was “unacceptable” that so many people had died in the bombings, adding that the second explosion that they had set off was much bigger than they had expected.

The 2002 bombings were blamed on the militant Jemaah Islamiyah network. The group has been accused of staging repeated attacks in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries.