Residents of Rakosh in western Kosovo say a series of graves there contain the bodies of more than 100 Kosovo Albanians who were executed by their Serb guards at a prison at Istok during the Kosovo conflict.

The jail was bombed by Nato during the war but the Kosovo Albanians say that after the attack, Serbian police killed most of the remaining prisoners. The Serb authorities have always maintained that the dead were victims of the Nato air raid.

Karl Koenig, a legal adviser for the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, said: "From the information on the wooden planks, we assume they have been here since the 26 or 27 May."

Serb forces showed off what they said were Nato's victims in May

There are 97 graves marked with numbers, not names, and it is thought that some of the plots may contain more than one body.

Relatives are desperate for the exhumations to be carried out with all speed so they can find the missing people.

They will have to dig up the bodies and identify them," says Sami Deloshi, who is looking for his nephew.

"They should be given back to the families to be buried in a civilised manner."

Nato bombing

Nato bombed the prison repeatedly in mid-May, justifying its attacks by saying the prison was a military and police complex.

Orla Guerin reports from the site of the mass grave

Serb officials invited foreign journalists into the prison to see the effects of the bombing. They showed journalists several dozen corpses, though it could not be established how the people had died.

Kosovo Albanians say the killing of the prisoners was one of the worst war crimes in Kosovo during the final three months of the conflict.

Survivor recalls 'massacre'

"We were all gathered in the yard of the prison," recalled Bajrash Gemali, who survived.

We were made to stand in four lines. They told us to march to the exit, but when we did, they started to shoot at us.

"First they opened fire with snipers, then they used machine-guns and mortars - it was a massacre."

There are other former prisoners telling similar stories.

The Serbian authorities always deny that their forces carried out war crimes in Kosovo, saying that Albanian witnesses are unreliable.