TOKYO - A FORMER Allied prisoner of war demanded Friday that Japan's prime minister apologize for its use of forced labor at a coal mine operated by his family during World War II.

Joseph Coombs, 88, who worked 12-hour days in the mine where at least two of his fellow Australian servicemen died, says current Prime Minister Taro Aso, grandson of the mine operator, should apologize. Coombs also wants compensation.

Japan last year acknowledged for the first time that Aso's family-run mine in Fukuoka, southern Japan, used POWs as slave labor during the final months of the war. Aso acknowledged it too but has never apologized.

Coombs said Aso should 'be the one to apologize for the family's involvement in the mine and also as head of the government.'

The Australian is visiting Japan and is supported in his demands by James McAnulty, son of former Scottish POW, Jim McAnulty, in a trip organized by an opposition Japanese lawmaker whose earlier request for government verification of a wartime document brought the case to the surface. They spoke to reporters at the lawmaker's office in Tokyo.

Coombs said he and his fellow POWs were forced to work in harsh and dangerous conditions inside a narrow mining tunnel. After four months of unpaid hard labor - as long as 12 hours a day - he weighed only 105 pounds (48 kilograms), down from 176 pounds (80 kilograms).

'The memories (of atrocities) are always there, but an apology would help ease the pain,' Coombs said. He said compensation is 'a second matter.'

A Health and Welfare Ministry official told parliament in December that 300 British, Dutch and Australian POWs were used at Aso Mining, founded by the prime minister's grandfather, from April 1945 until Japan's surrender four months later. Two of 197 Australians died at the mine. -- AP