Sarajevo, Monday

WAR crimes investigators said today they would soon start work in Bosnia and a US envoy demanded that prisoners be freed as international attention turned to bringing justice to the country as well as peace.

Judge Richard Goldstone, head of the International Tribunal on War Crimes in former Yugoslavia, said in Sarajevo investigators would start work in the field ``in the very, very near future'' with the help of international peacekeepers.

Nato and the tribunal agreed to co-ordinate their missions in Bosnia after a meeting in Sarajevo between Goldstone and Admiral Leighton Smith, Nato commander in Bosnia.

Smith said he was satisfied that Nato would be able to provide ``appropriate assistance, at the appropriate time, to ensure area security for tribunal teams carrying out investigations and activity at mass grave sites''.

Goldstone's visit followed an unprecedented tour of sites of alleged war atrocities on Serb-held territory yesterday by US human rights envoy John Shattuck.

Shattuck saw spattered blood and holes in the walls of a warehouse in which 2000 people were believed to have been slaughtered by heavy weapons, grenades, and bullets. They were then buried at the nearby village of Glogova.

A Reuters reporter saw a human bone, with flesh and rags attached, protruding from a suspected mass grave nearby.

Shattuck also inspected a schoolhouse and gymnasium where, according to reports by survivors, people were held before being taken out in groups of 30 into woods nearby and shot.

Shattuck also told a news conference in Sarajevo that he had received assurances from Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and the ``interior minister'' of Serb-held areas of Bosnia that they would co-operate with the tribunal.

War crimes investigators say 7000 Muslims are missing since Serb forces captured the UN ``safe haven'' of Srebrenica last July, creating a mass exodus of refugees and prompting the tribunal to indict Bosnian Serb ``president'' Radovan Karadzic and army commander Ratko Mladic.

In Washington, Defence Secretary Michael Portillo also said that war criminals ``must be brought to justice'' and expressed satisfaction that Nato troops might soon provide security for investigators.

US Defence Secretary William Perry added during a news conference that American intelligence will provide information to the tribunal.

Shattuck today pressed for the release of all prisoners who have been visited by the Red Cross, saying their fate will be his new priority.

Some 225 registered prisoners were freed on Friday, but hundreds more are still being held by Muslim, Croat, and Serb authorities despite the requirement of the Dayton peace agreement that they be released unconditionally by January 19.-Reuter.