Argentine War Victims Sue Mercedes-Benz

Wed Jan 14, 9:53 PM ET

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By DAVID KRAVETS, Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO - Survivors and victims of Argentina's "dirty war" filed suit Wednesday against automaker Mercedes-Benz for allegedly aiding human rights abuses in their country.

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Survivors of nine victims who disappeared and eight who say they were tortured by the Argentine government in the late 1970s filed the federal suit, alleging Mercedes-Benz was complicit in the killing, torture or kidnapping of unionized auto workers.


The plaintiffs, all living in Argentina, are invoking the Alien Tort Claims Act, an obscure 1789 law that their attorneys say grants overseas victims of atrocities access to U.S. courts to sue for damages.


"The plaintiffs don't think they can get a fair hearing in Argentina," said Daniel Kovalik, one of the group's lawyers based in Pittsburgh.


Mercedes-Benz's parent, DaimlerChrysler Corp. of Stuttgart, Germany, denied the allegations.


No corporation has ever gone to trial under the Alien Tort Claims Act. But last year, dozens of garment manufacturers and retailers facing such a lawsuit agreed to a $20 million settlement for alleged abuses of clothing workers in Saipan.


Several other cases brought under the act, alleging corporate abuses of human rights overseas, are making their way through federal courts.


Such use of the act has come under attack by the Justice Department (news - web sites). The Bush administration said in a court filing that nothing in the act "suggests an intent on the part of Congress that it would furnish a foundation for suits based on conduct occurring within other nations."


Some legal experts suggest Congress adopted the Alien Tort Claims Act to discourage seafaring piracy by allowing its victims to bring suits in U.S. courts. A French sea captain was one of the first foreigners to assert the little-used law in 1795.


DaimlerChrysler spokeswoman Ursula Mertzig-Stein said a company-sponsored study released last month concluded there was no evidence the automaker was complicit in the Argentine military's abuses.


"We were not involved in wrongdoings," she said.


In the 1970s and '80s, thousands of people were killed, kidnapped or "disappeared," including trade unionists, left-wing political activists, journalists and intellectuals in Argentina.


The suit says state security forces were "acting under the direction of and with material assistance" from Mercedes-Benz's plant near Buenos Aires.


One plaintiff, Juan Jose Martin, 51, said the military kidnapped him from the factory in 1976 and held him in a tiny cell for 19 days, where he was tortured with a cattle prod.


"The day before I was freed, the company had sent a telegram to my house saying that after what I had gone through I could take a week off with pay," he said in a telephone interview. "How did they know I was going to be freed? How did they know what had happened to me if even my family members did not have a clue of where I was?"