(Adds court details, recasts lead)
By Pablo Bachelet
WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Relatives of victims in Argentina's "Dirty War" sued DaimlerChrysler AG on Wednesday, accusing the auto maker of being responsible for the disappearance and torture of workers and union leaders nearly three decades ago.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, seeks an undisclosed amount in damages. It accuses DaimlerChrysler of playing a role in the disappearance and presumed death of nine workers and the torture of eight others who worked at its Mercedes Benz plant in the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
The plaintiffs say the disappearances "were carried out by state security forces acting under the direction and collaboration" with Mercedes Benz Argentina, according to court documents.
The case was assigned to the court's division in San Jose, where DaimlerChrysler has a research and technology center.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs say plant managers gave security forces the names and addresses of union leaders, who were then detained.
"They wanted to get rid of the union leaders and branding them as subversives was an effective way to do it," said Mark Chavez, an attorney for the plaintiffs.
The auto maker, which also faces criminal charges in Argentina in the case, says that the company's board appointed a three-member commission headed by an international jurist to investigate the disappearances. It found no evidence of wrongdoing by Mercedes-Benz management, a company official said.
A spokesman for DaimlerChrysler said the company had no immediate comment on the lawsuit.
The abuses occurred in 1976-1977. A military junta took power in 1976, and killed an estimated 30,000 people before returning to the barracks in 1983.
DaimlerChrysler is the latest big corporation taken to court under the 200-year-old Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows foreign nationals to file suits in U.S. courts against U.S. companies accused of human rights abuses.
The Coca Cola Company faces charges of using Colombian paramilitary units to intimidate unions and Unocal was sued over accusations of rights abuses linked to its Myanmar pipeline.
The DaimlerChrysler suit was filed by the International Labor Rights Fund, a Washington-based labor advocacy group, Dan Kovalik, a labor rights attorney and the Chavez & Gertler law firm.