Dhaka  - A four-member Scotland Yard team arrived in Dhaka Wednesday to assist Bangladesh authorities in investigating last month's mutiny by paramilitary soldiers that killed 71 people, mostly army officers, officials said.

The British government sent the team on Bangladesh's request to help local authorities investigate the massacre inside the Dhaka headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifle border guards, a British High Commission representative said.

Its stay would depend on the volume and nature of its tasks to be fixed by the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed, who had sought international assistance in the investigation and quick prosecution of the mutineers.

She also sought assistance from the United Nations.

A two-member US Federal Bureau of Investigation team, labelled as an advance squad, has been preparing a need assessment report for the core investigation team.

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation assured us of providing support, especially in forensic investigation and tracing perpetrators of the killings," said Abdul Kahhar Akand, investigation officer of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Bangladesh police.

Bangladesh launched three separate investigations by the army, Home Affairs Ministry and the Criminal Investigation Department after the 33-hour bloody mutiny that was quelled on February 26.

The government appointed Commerce Minister Faruk Khan, a retired lieutenant colonel, as coordinator of all the investigations.

More than 1,000 Bangladesh Rifles soldiers were charged for their involvement in the mutiny, killings, arson and looting of armouries insides the headquarters of Bangladesh's paramilitary border force.

The authorities planned speedy trials for the mutineers, preferably courts martial, although a minister said the mode of the trials would be determined after the investigation was completed.

More than 100 soldiers, including a prime suspect, were remanded into custody for interrogation as of Wednesday while 400 others were under surveillances at the Bangladesh Rifle headquarters.

Army-led joint forces remained deployed across the country to capture other mutineers. (dpa)